The frustrating thing about Robert B. Parker’s Spenser novels is that lines like these come up all too often:

‘We both live in worlds where the cynicism is age-old and millennium-deep,’ Ives said. ‘We are both cynical, and with good reason. But you are not cynical, Lochinvar. I find it refreshing.’

Who speaks like this? Even a malicious evil genius wouldn’t speak like that.
 
But then a couple pages later:

The headmistress was a tall, slim woman who looked a little like Charles de Gaulle.

Zing!