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      So this was what springtime in London was like:  the women in knee-length dresses of blue-and-white hoops; the men with dark jackets over sweaters in pastel shades.  Both sexes carried shoulder bags with more flaps and fastenings than necessary, the females' either red or black, the males' a healthy, masculine buff-colour, and caps made an occasional appearance too, alongside headbands—let's not forget the headbands.  Headbands, in rainbow stripes, lent the women an over-eager look, as if they grasped too keenly at the fashion of their youth, though the genuinely youthful sported the same accessory with apparent unconcern.  Feet wore sandals or flipflops, faces wore wide-eyed content, and body language was at once mute and expressive, capturing a single moment of wellbeing and beaming it everywhere.  They were both uplit and downlit, those plastic springtime celebrants, as a piano tinkled melodious background nonsense for their pleasure, and a miniature waterfall drummed an unwavering beat, and Samit Catterjee watched all of it through narrowed eyes, his thin features alert and suspicious.

-Mick Herron, Spook Street