"You have to ignore the wreckage and look beyond it for the monster."
~ Steve Cavanagh
Read all great Steve Cavanagh quotes below ...
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In the realm of legal thrillers, Steve Cavanagh stands as a luminary whose gripping narratives and razor-sharp prose have captivated readers around the world. With a background in law and a talent for storytelling, Cavanagh brings a unique blend of authenticity and excitement to his novels, crafting tales that keep readers on the edge of their seats until the very last page.
Born and raised in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Cavanagh's early years were shaped by a fascination with the law and a passion for writing. After studying law at the University of Dublin, he embarked on a successful career as a solicitor, specializing in criminal defense cases. Drawing from his own experiences in the courtroom, Cavanagh brings a level of authenticity and realism to his novels that sets them apart from other legal thrillers.
Cavanagh burst onto the literary scene with his debut novel, "The Defense," a riveting tale of courtroom drama and intrigue that introduced readers to the enigmatic defense attorney Eddie Flynn. With its breakneck pace and clever plot twists, "The Defense" garnered widespread acclaim and established Cavanagh as a rising star in the world of crime fiction. Subsequent novels in the Eddie Flynn series, including "The Plea" and "The Liar," further solidified Cavanagh's reputation as a master of the genre, earning him legions of devoted fans and critical acclaim.
One of the hallmarks of Cavanagh's writing is his ability to blend suspenseful storytelling with intricate legal maneuvering. His novels are meticulously researched and filled with authentic detail, immersing readers in the high-stakes world of criminal law. Whether he is unraveling a complex legal conspiracy or delving into the psyche of a morally ambiguous protagonist, Cavanagh's writing crackles with tension and excitement, keeping readers guessing until the final reveal.
Readers are drawn to Cavanagh's work for its gripping plot twists, memorable characters, and breakneck pacing. His novels are filled with larger-than-life personalities and pulse-pounding action, making them impossible to put down once you've started reading. From courtroom showdowns to heart-stopping chases, Cavanagh's books deliver thrills and excitement in equal measure, keeping readers coming back for more.
While Cavanagh is best known for his Eddie Flynn series, he has also received acclaim for his standalone novels, including "Thirteen" and "Twisted." These novels showcase Cavanagh's versatility as a writer, as well as his talent for crafting gripping narratives that push the boundaries of the genre.
In addition to his literary accomplishments, Cavanagh has also been recognized for his contributions to the crime fiction community. He has received numerous awards and accolades, including the [insert specific awards/accolades here], which have helped to elevate his profile and cement his reputation as one of the genre's most exciting voices.
For those who have yet to experience the thrill of Steve Cavanagh's novels, his books offer an exhilarating ride through the dark underbelly of the legal world. Whether you're a fan of crime fiction or simply love a good mystery, Cavanagh's novels promise an unforgettable reading experience that will leave you breathless and craving more.
Looking ahead, fans of Steve Cavanagh can anticipate the release of his highly anticipated new novel, "Kill for Me, Kill for You," set to debut in the coming months. With its promise of gripping suspense and heart-stopping twists, the novel is sure to captivate readers and further solidify Cavanagh's reputation as one of the genre's most talented storytellers. As he continues to push the boundaries of crime fiction and thrill readers with his electrifying storytelling, Steve Cavanagh remains a writer to watch, his novels a testament to the enduring power of a well-told tale.
Steve Cavanagh Best Quotes
“The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.”
― Steve Cavanagh, Thirteen“You have to ignore the wreckage and look beyond it for the monster.”
― Steve Cavanagh, Th1rt3en“The truth has no place in a courtroom. The only thing that matters is what the prosecution can prove.”
― Steve Cavanagh, The Defence“The victories are sweet and soon forgotten, but the mistakes stay with you forever.”
― Steve Cavanagh, The Liar“People believe what they can see. As long as you control their view, you control their mind.”
― Steve Cavanagh, The Plea“Hustling an insurance company was like playing poker with Satan—his house, his rules.”
― Steve Cavanagh, The Defence“What they all understood was that if they told me they were guilty but that they wanted to fight the case anyway, I could no longer represent them. That was the game.”
― Steve Cavanagh, The Defence“Whatever good things you’ve heard about me probably aren’t true. Whatever bad things you’ve heard are probably just the tip of the iceberg,” I said.”
― Steve Cavanagh, Thirteen“You don’t need a bomb to win this case. You’ve already got one—I’m the bomb.”
― Steve Cavanagh, The Defence“Mourning is sometimes a dull ache that won’t leave, and other times it’s like pricking your finger on a needle hidden in a shopping bag.”
― Steve Cavanagh, Kill for Me Kill for You“This was how it had to be. The city centre had to be for all religions, and so the ubiquitous, shinning, grey had quickly become the nascent colour. Whereas the the Ardoyne rejoced in the tricolours and every shade of green, so too the Shankill kept their houses and kerbs in the Union Jack, and each side of the divided city painted their gables and drenched themselves in the rich colours which formed their history, their protection, their identity, their, and they lived under the terrible weight that came with it. In Belfast, colour was joyful, territorial, and frightening. And so the heart of the city embraced a comforting blanket of grey.”
― Steve Cavanagh“Walking past a person with dirt on their face, and no food, and no money, was part of everyday life in New York.”
― Steve Cavanagh, Thirteen“It’s hard to describe the truth. It has a weight. A density. It makes a sound when it drifts through your breastplate, hits your soul and then falls into your guts. You feel it. It haunts the air and it’s so thick and undeniable you almost feel like you can take a bite clean out of it. Mostly, you just know it when you hear it.”
― Steve Cavanagh, The Accomplice“His face, normally a brighter shade of corpse, turned just a little red.”
― Steve Cavanagh, The Devil's Advocate“Words never weigh so much as when they’re spoken for somebody else.”
― Steve Cavanagh, Thirteen“She’d brought her stenotype machine in a portable bag and, judging by her expression, she was carrying around a big bag of resentment for being hauled out of her bed to come here at two in the morning.”
― Steve Cavanagh, Thirteen“Bow ties spell danger to trial lawyers; no one is more strident in their views than a man in a bow tie.”
― Steve Cavanagh, The Defence“THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS a bad case. Only a bad client. Judge Harry Ford, my mentor, had taught me that a long time ago. He’d been proven right. Time and time again. Sitting in a leather chair beside Bobby Solomon, I was reminded of Harry’s advice.”
― Steve Cavanagh, Thirteen“I asked questions for a living.”
― Steve Cavanagh, The Accomplice“I think I'll stick around as a defense attorney for a while yet,' I said.
'Why? Look at all this has cost you, Eddie. Why do it?'
I wasn't even looking at Harry, but I could sense be already knew the answer.
'Because I can. Because I have to. Because there will always be the Art Pryors and Rudy Carps of this business. Somebody's gotta do the right thing.'
'It doesn't always have to be you,' said Harry.
'What if everyone said that? What if nobody stood up for anyone because they expected the other guy to do it? Somebody has to be standing on the other side of the line. And if I fall, somebody will have to come along and take my place. All I have to do is keep standing for as long as I can.”
― Steve Cavanagh, Th1rt3en“I like the lighting in here. It’s … atmospheric,” said Rudy. The lighting was so atmospheric I had to use the glare from my cell phone screen just to read the menu. It was in French. I decided to order whatever Rudy was having and be done with it. The place made me uncomfortable. I didn’t like ordering from a menu that refused to display prices beside the food. Not my kind of place.”
― Steve Cavanagh, Thirteen“Do exactly as I tell you or I’ll put a bullet in your spine.”
― Steve Cavanagh, The Defence“The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.”—from the motion picture screenplay The Usual Suspects, by Christopher McQuarrie”
― Steve Cavanagh, Thirteen“His face, normally a brighter grade of corpse, turned just a little red.”
― Steve Cavanagh“I wondered how small Levy’s dick had to be for him to get this kind of enjoyment from degrading a female employee. Pretty damn small, I concluded.”
― Steve Cavanagh, Fifty-Fifty“A year later Joshua Kane was diagnosed with a rare genetic condition: congenital analgesia. The pain receptors in his brain didn’t function at all. Little Joshua had never felt pain, and never would. Sitting in the doctor’s office, Kane recalled how his mother received the news with a mixture of happiness and fear. Happy that her son would never know physical pain, but nonetheless afraid.”
― Steve Cavanagh, Thirteen“Carp Law”.”
― Steve Cavanagh, Thirteen“In a criminal trial, forensic evidence is God.”
― Steve Cavanagh, Thirteen“La defensa quiere gente que piense. El fiscal quiere soldados.”
― Steve Cavanagh, 13“he would be running a quarter over his knuckles like droplets of mercury slipping over a fork.”
― Steve Cavanagh, The Defence“I still remember the taste of the Dr. Peppers,”
― Steve Cavanagh, The Defence“It’s like a Christian archaeologist who digs up dinosaur bones testifying that the world is only five thousand years old. You can’t be in both schools at once; it’s hypocritical.”
― Steve Cavanagh, The Defence“It should’ve been”
― Steve Cavanagh, Fifty-Fifty“El tres es el número mágico. Ocupa un lugar importante en nuestra mente; lo vemos constantemente en nuestra cultura y nuestra vida diaria. Si alguien te llama por teléfono equivocándose una vez, así es la vida. Si vuelves a recibir una llamada equivocada, es una coincidencia. Si se equivocan por tercera vez, sabes que algo pasa. En nuestro subconsciente, el número tres equivale a una especie de verdad o hecho. De algún modo, es divino. Jesús resucitó al tercer día. La Santísima Trinidad. A la tercera va la vencida. Tres strikes y estás eliminado. Pryor hizo tres promesas. Dijo la palabra «culpable» tres veces. Utilizó la palabra «tres». Mostró tres dedos. Los ritmos y cadencias de su discurso giraban en torno al número tres. «No voy a especular. No voy a teorizar. Voy a mostrarles la verdad […] Este caso trata de sexo, dinero y venganza […] Hundió el cuchillo en su cuerpo una y otra y otra vez.» Hasta la estructura de su discurso estaba construida sobre ese número. Para empezar, anunció al jurado que les iba a decir tres cosas. A continuación, les dijo las tres cosas. Y, en tercer lugar, les explicó lo que acababa de decir. Tenía motivos para parecer tan satisfecho consigo mismo. El truco estaba bien ensayado, bien pensado, era psicológicamente manipulador y tremendamente persuasivo. Antes de levantarme para hablar, vi la mirada preocupada de Bobby. Sabía lo que”
― Steve Cavanagh, 13“I think I'll stick around as a defense attorney for a while yet,' I said.
'Why? Look at all this has cost you, Eddie. Why do it?'
I wasn't even looking at Harry, but I could sense he already knew the answer.
'Because I can. Because I have to. Because there will always be the Art Pryors and Rudy Carps of this business. Somebody's gotta do the right thing.'
'It doesn't always have to be you,' said Harry.
'What if everyone said that? What if nobody stood up for anyone because they expected the other guy to do it? Somebody has to be standing on the other side of the line. And if I fall, somebody will have to come along and take my place. All I have to do is keep standing for as long as I can.”
― Steve Cavanagh, Th1rt3en“como autor, todo es mucho más fácil.”
― Steve Cavanagh, 13“The Honorable Cleveland Parks, presiding judge, had a face that looked like a deflated balloon.”
― Steve Cavanagh, Thirteen“Guilt was a tattoo that weighed two hundred pounds. As long as I fought for those clients I believed in, I was slowly shedding that weight. It would take time.”
― Steve Cavanagh, Thirteen“It sounded like breakfast cereal, wrapped tightly in a napkin and squeezed.”
― Steve Cavanagh, Thirteen“Almost everything you’ve just said is wrong,” said Delaney. “In BAU we call them repeaters. They can be from any ethnic group. Any age, within reason. A lot of them are married with a big family. You could live next to one and never know it. The poor social skills and low intelligence are reasonable assumptions, but not always the case. Most evade capture for a long time due to their victim selection. Most victims of repeaters have never met their killer before. Even a dumb repeater can operate for years before the cops catch up to them. But then there’s the one percent. They have highly developed social skills, their IQ is off the scale, and whatever it is in their heads that makes them kill can be successfully hidden from even their closest friends. We don’t catch their kind too often. Best example would be Ted Bundy. And contrary to what you’ll see on TV—these killers don’t want to get caught. Ever. Some will go to extraordinary lengths to ensure they stay out of jail, including masking their kills. Others, while they still don’t want to get caught, secretly want someone to acknowledge their work.”
― Steve Cavanagh, Thirteen“And that Kane’s father wasn’t really a marine who got killed in a faraway place. It had been him, the one they’d buried together. She told Kane she was sorry. She had needed the money. Kane told her he had understood. And he did. He didn’t tell her the other part. The part he knew he was never supposed to tell anyone. That when he put that big knife through the man’s face, he’d felt good. Real good. That feeling had been increasingly difficult to replicate as the years went by.”
― Steve Cavanagh, Thirteen“The real story was in the photographs. Crime scene photos don’t lie. They’re not witnesses. They can’t make a mistake, they can’t hide the truth.”
― Steve Cavanagh, Thirteen“that my client held the bag by the handles. Your Honor, this is the last straw – so to speak.” Judge Parks put a hand up. He’d heard enough from me. He turned in his seat and directed his attention to Norm. “Mr. Folkes, I’ve examined this bag, and the straw with the actual items located in the bottom of the sack. I am not satisfied that Detective Granger could have seen a straw protruding from the top of this bag. On that basis, there is no probable cause for his search, and all evidence gathered as a result is inadmissible. Including the straw. I am concerned, to say the least, at the recent trend among some officers in classifying soda straws and other innocuous items as drug paraphernalia. Be that as it may, you have no evidence to support an arrest and I am dismissing all charges. I’m sure you had a lot to say to me, Mr. Folkes, but there’s no point – I’m afraid, you’re too damn late.” Jean hugged my neck, partially strangling me in the process. I patted her arm, gently, and she let go. She may not want to hug me when she gets my bill. The judge and his staff got up and left the courtroom. Granger stormed out, shooting me with his index finger as he left. It didn’t bother me, I was used to it. “So when can I expect you to file an appeal,” I said to Norm. “Not”
― Steve Cavanagh, Thirteen“He has to ask me out, first,’ said Harper, shouting though the door at Harry. I could hear Harry’s laughter in the hallway, and Clarence’s paws on the wooden floor getting fainter as they got closer to the stairs. ‘Hypothetically, if I were to ask you out, would that be a good thing?’ I asked, trying to smile through the nerves turning my stomach to jelly. ‘It depends,’ said Harper. ‘You’d have to make an effort. My dad bought flowers once in his life – when he asked my mom out on their first date. He wasn’t the romantic type, so he must have really been in love. My mom talked about that bunch of flowers a lot. It didn’t matter that”
― Steve Cavanagh, Fifty-Fifty“Port Lonely had two bars. Maria had visited each only once before.
One bar called Clarence’s charged twelve dollars for a mojito and housed an aging jazz pianist who looked like he was digging his way out of the place through the piano, desperately trying to flee the smell of disinfectant and avocado.
The other bar didn’t know what a mojito was, and if they ever encountered an avocado they’d probably shoot it. They served both kinds of alcohol—beer and bourbon. Although on ladies’ night the bartender had been known to blow the dust off a bottle of tequila.”
― Steve Cavanagh, Twisted“And that was when Korn fell in love with it. In the same music that caused others so much joy, Korn heard only Beethoven’s anguish and pain. And he reveled it.”
― Steve Cavanagh, The Devil's Advocate“En un juicio penal, la prueba científica es Dios. Pero yo soy abogado defensor. Tengo al diablo de mi lado. Y el diablo no juega limpio.”
― Steve Cavanagh, 13“«El mejor truco del diablo fue convencer al mundo de que no existía»,”
― Steve Cavanagh, 13“Si quieres que no te descubran, tienes que ser precavido.”
― Steve Cavanagh, 13“I’d function,’ said Hernandez. ‘I’d find the motherfucker and I’d put a bullet between his legs. Then I’d go to work on him.’ ‘Not everyone is a psycho like you, Karen.’ ‘Don’t knock the psychos. We can be useful.”
― Steve Cavanagh, Kill for Me Kill for You“The number three equates to some form of truth or fact in our subconscious. It is somehow divine. Jesus rose on the third day. The Holy Trinity. Third time lucky. Three strikes and you’re out. Pryor”
― Steve Cavanagh, Thirteen“Rudy Carp left in the room now. He was applauding, with what looked like a genuine smile on his face. Rudy stood up and said, “Congratulations, that was … impressive. I need five minutes of your time.” “What for?” “I want to know if you’d like to take second chair in the biggest murder trial this city has ever seen.”
― Steve Cavanagh, Thirteen