The following descriptions are given by a female narrator in Lawrence Sanders'
The Eighth Connandment:
He was a dark, saturnine fellow with a beaky nose: a perfect Iago with that kind of menacing handsomeness I suppose some women find attractive, but which makes me slightly queasy. Also, his cologne smelled like Juicy Fruit.
The man behind the enormous partners’ desk rose to greet me with a wintry smile. A blocky figure draped in a gorgeous suit of dove-gray flannel with a hairline red stripe. White silk shirt with a bow tie: polka-dotted blue. His vest had white piping—the first time I had ever seen that. Hair silvered to a sheen, and eyes a cold, cold azure.
I had an instant reaction: I was meeting a personage. Later, I tried to analyze my awe, and decided it was due to his carriage, voice, grooming, and his presence. He just gave the impression of being a very important man. In control. Even in less admirable surroundings, I think he still would have conveyed the feeling of power and distinction. He was so complete.
And—as if he needed it!—he was beautiful, in the way certain older men sometimes are. A heavy face with crinkly laugh lines. Full mouth. Solid jaw. And, of course, the silvered hair and ice-cube eyes. He could have posed for Chairman of the Board of the Universe. His cufflinks were little enamel reproductions of a Picasso. I’m sure he thought them an amusing whimsy.
Mabel Havistock was a square, chunky matron with bluish hair and the jaw of a longshoreman. She was the sort of woman, I thought, who probably wore a brown corset with all kinds of straps, laces, buckles, and snaps. She looked somewhat ogreish, but I must admit she was civil enough when we were introduced, though her cold glance immediately pegged me as the costume jewelry type. Her pearls were real.
Lemuel Whattsworth, the attorney, was a thinnish man: thin face, thin body, thin voice. Even what he had to say was thin, being composed mostly of whereas, heretofore, notwithstanding, and similar expressions designed to make the eyeballs glaze over.
He [an NYPD detective] was a big, rumpled man who looked like he had been sleeping in his clothes. About thirty-seven to forty years old, I guessed—around there. A face like a punched pillow, except for those sharp eyes. And a smile of real warmth. I thought he was a charmer. Also, I thought he might be hung over.
...
He really was a most attractive man. A little frazzled around the edges, like a worn French actor, but all the more comfortable for that. I mean he wasn’t trying to be anything he wasn’t. His heavy face, wrinkled clothes, his slouch, the way he moved—everything about him said, “What you see is what you get.”
Jack Smack [an insurance company investigator] turned out to be a very elegant young man indeed. About thirty-five, I judged, and a few inches taller than me. His suit of raw black silk showed Italian tailoring, and he was wearing Aramis, which always turns me on.
...
He uncrossed his knees, crossed them in the other direction. He fussed with the hanging trouser leg to make certain the crease was unwrinkled. Then he sipped his vodka reflectively, tinking the rim of the glass gently against his white teeth.
Really a beau ideal: slender, graceful, with all the right moves. A wry smile—but that may have been part of his act. There was a certain theatricality about him; I had the sense of his being always on. But that didn’t diminish his attractiveness. He was possibly, I thought, the handsomest man I had ever seen—except for my oldest brother, Tom, who could have been minted on the obverse of a Greek drachm with a laurel wreath around his head.