Bob & Lisa's Spenser for Hire Pages

A Catskill Eagle
Robert B. Parker
Published 1985

Spenser gets a plea for help from his wayward girlfriend, Susan. "Hawk's in jail, come rescue us". So he does - helps Hawk escape, breaks into the boyfriend Russ's home, then burns down his Washington lodge. With some reference help from Rachel Wallace. Spenser kills a few people along the way, too, and broods about that. No sign of Susan. Spenser and Hawk fly back to Boston and chat with Paul, Quirk and Beltsen.

Next the Feds are involved, wanting to help Spenser off the bad guy (Russ' father, Jerry) in return for Susan and clemency. They of course are no help, though, and in comes Rachel again. Spenser goes off to Chicago to meet the wife of the slime boyfriend, who feels Susan's a whore for sleeping with a married man (i.e. her husband). Will the yarn never unravel?

Eventually they destroy a factory in Connecticut, get Susan back, and Russ gets Spenser into the Idaho fortress in a twisted Edopile situation. Spenser kills Jerry, Russ gives up on Susan, and Spenser and Susan are "happily ever after, forever" again. Ah, life.

Lisa Says: So in this one, Spenser the honorable is dragged down to even lower depths because of Susan's love. Or her need to be rescued. As the title quote implies, even when Spenser lowers his standards, it's still much higher than most other humans. But he does it for Susan, who has gotten herself into a mess she can't handle. Susan, who ran off on him with this guy, now wants help from Spenser to get away. *sigh* Never mind poor Hawk, who's also dragged into it. "She did what she had to do," says Spenser. Did she have to? Or could she have been a self-sufficient adult? Is she truly a whore for happily sleeping with a married man to "liberate herself from a relationship she couldn't just get of by herself" (i.e. Spenser)? And her with a Doctorate in Psychology.

And in the end, she's going "OK, we can sleep together now" and he says "so are we back together"? Always waiting for her to define things. How could she feel he ran her before? It was her own perception. And now they say "forever", as if she wouldn't do this again when she felt "eeek, I am being controlled!"

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