Wednesdays with Words: It matters

I’ve been reading the Sebastian St. Cyr novels by CS Harris. (Truth be told as I write this Tuesday night I’m right in the middle of the second, but have the third on deck from the library and may request book 4 & 5 to pick up Thursday because I will finish 2 either tonight or tomorrow) I’ve been sucked into the setting and characters and the mysteries are intriguing too.  I read and reviewed the first book, What Angels Fear, last week.

This week, I’m reading When Gods Die. Sebastian, as we have seen, has a strong sense of justice and a need for – not retribution – but that the truth be told.  Here he discusses that need with his friend, Dr. Gibson who does medical examinations on St. Cyr’s behalf:

Sebastian gazed down at the still, ravaged body of the woman hidden beneath the sheet. “[I don’t trust Jarvis] at all. But someone killed Guinevere Anglessey. Someone slipped that dagger into the livid flesh of her bare back and brought her body here to drape it across that couch in a deliberately suggestive poster. Lord Jarvis’s sole intent in all this is to protect the Prince. But mine is different.  I’m going to find out who killed this woman, and I’m going to see that he pays for it.”

“Because of the necklace?”

Sebastian shook his head. “Because if I don’t, no one else will.”

“What does it matter to you?”

[snip]

He had few illusions about the world in which he lived.  He knew the shocking inequality between its privileged and its poor; he recognized the savage injustice of a legal system that could hang an eight-year-old boy for stealing a loaf of bread and yet let a king’s son get away with murder. Once, he’d been so repulsed by the raw barbarism and senseless cruelty of the wars his people fought in the name of liberty and justice that he’d been content simply to let himself drift, aimless and alone.  Now that struck him as a reaction that was both self-indulgent and faintly cowardly.

Crouching down beside what was left of the young woman named Guinevere, Sebastian tucked the sheet over that pale, vulnerable hand and said softly, “It matters.”

What are you reading this week? I’d love to know about it!

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