Recent reads

A Catskill Eagle, by Robert B. Parker. The 12th installment in the continuing saga of Boston private detective Spenser, published in 1985, opens with a quotation from Henry David Thoreau:

And there is a Catskill eagle in some souls that can alike dive down into the blackest gorges, and soar out of them again and become invisible in the sunny spaces. And even if he forever flies within the gorge, that gorge is in the mountains; so that even in his lowest sweep the mountain eagle is still higher than the other birds upon the plain, even though they soar.

Something a bit darker than the usual private-eye caper is going on here. The Catskill eagle, obviously, is a metaphor for Spenser himself, and he's about to dive into some very dark gorges indeed.

"It was nearly midnight...." (p. 1) Spenser's lost his lover and emotional touchstone, Susan, who has left him to begin a new relationship with a man she met while interning in Washington DC. ("Control has been an issue....") He's still competently "detecting", halfheartedly following embezzlers to their lunch appointments, but without much verve.

When he receives a desperate, pleading letter from Susan, we get to see a hint of what a Spenser with no ethical principles might be like. It's not a pretty sight as Spenser and Hawk leave a trail of intimidation, brutality, and even murder and assassination across the country while searching for her. But through all the carnage, despite even the dangerous idea of the Nieztschian ubermensch that is called up by the "Catskill eagle" quotation, Parker still manages to portray Spenser as being fundamentally good, a paladin of destruction who commits atrocious acts because it's the only way to protect the woman he loves. His usual ethical principles are, if not broken, definitely bent in the process.

It's all a matter of priorities, I suppose. And absolute personal loyalty, once granted, can force even a high-flying ubermensch to dive into some pretty dark gorges.