Department of nasty Scots similes, part one

 Just finished The Torment of Others, a quite decent police mystery by Val McDermid. It takes the standard Ed McBain police procedural format (One major investigation/one minor investigation; one professional development/one emotional development in the ongoing cast of characters) transports it to Scotland, and pumps up the intensity to compete at serial psycho/sexual killer weight.

It's not my favorite kind of potboiler, but it delivers. Thecharacters are just believable enough notto stick out like fence posts: in books like these the agonies and frrustrations of the protagonists are just another plot engine--which is why fictional detectives tend to veer towards eccentricity rather than depth. (Not that that's the case here.) My only unfair minor complaint is that, although it's set in Scotland, as soon as it gets going it might as well be in the 87th Precinct. (Not that I'm asking for bagpipes and haggis. but I've gotten a little spoiled by Alexander McCall Smith's deft and colorful Edinburgh novels.)

But it becomes worthy of a post because  of one line that leapt up and embedded in my brain like a pushpin. 

"He held his erection like a pet rat."

It's worth reading an entire conventional book for something like that.