A lovely turn of phrase

Just a quickie, but I wanted to share this with folk I know will understand. Let me tell you why I'm devouring the Jack Reacher novels of Lee Child. It's because of writing like this:

They passed through the crossroads hamlet with the school and the gas station and the diner. It whipped backward through the headlight beams, three short seconds end to end.

Cracking stuff: so much better than saying, 'It took three seconds to drive down main street.' The boy from Coventry done good.