Customer Reviews

A Catskill Eagle

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I have read several Spenser novels chronologically starting with Mortal Stakes. This was my least favorite so far, but I still give it high grades. Parker is really stretching credibility in a story that boils down to a fight between two boys over a girl. It is a really big and complicated fight, and it involves mercenaries, gun manufacturers, CIA, FBI, so on and so on. But Parker somehow pulled it off. I can't help but enjoy the dynamic of Spenser, Hawk, Susan, et al. As with all of Parker's books, the strength lies in his characters.

Overall, it was an entertaining but not quite great book; it was just a little too farfetched to get a five star rating. But if you are a fan of Spenser, you have to read this book. It is of crucial importance if you are following the relationships and the development of the characters.

Before this every Spenser novel was enjoyable, rich with characterization, and an amazing sense of style.

Then came A Catskill Eagle.

It's like Parker used everything up right here. He has Spenser go cross country to save his girl and all of a sudden everything becomes overblown. There is no reason to believe that the villain is FBI related and a terrorist until Parker runs out of steam. And then it turns into a James Bond novel. Which isn't what I'm looking for.

It gets three stars because it's Parker, but after this Parker loses some steam, and the novels are on the decline. Until Small Vices anyway.

Having read all of Parker's Spenser novels -- and all but the first are very good or better -- this one is the best. It integrates all the familiar Spenser characters from earlier novels, even Rachel Wallace, sheds further light on the relationship with Hawk, and, most especially, on that with Susan Silverman, which is the subject of the esoteric title. It shows Spencer sensitive and suffering over the woman he loves, seems satisfying psychologically to me, although I'm not sure Susan would act quite as she did. But that's a quibble. This is Parker at his best, Spenser at his height, and a good, rip-roaring, cross-country adventure story to boot. I like God Save the Child and Mortal Stakes and Early Autumn and Small Vices very much. But if I had to take one Spenser book with me on a long, boring journey, this would be it.

Parker's novels are usually good escapist fare, but this is worse than awful.
It should have been titled "Susan Silverman Airhead" rather than its current title.

The basic story is that Spencer and Hawk must kill numerous people in order to free Susan Silverman from her new lover. Only at the end do we find that Susan was never really a captive and believed that he would never have stopped her from leaving. Rather than being held captive, they were on an extended holiday.. It turns out her crisis was that she was simply conflicted about her love for both Spencer and her new lover-both being "excessively" in love with her. This of course causes her stress and threatens her "fierce independence." She remains emotionally conflicted even after her "rescue."

Susan has always been portrayed as a smart (PH.D from Harvard in Psychiatry), mature, and most of all
independent woman. She displays her independence in this story and those leading up to it by:
1. Continuing to use her alimony payments from her long divorced husband to finance her high end shopping habit.
2. Continually calling upon Spenser and/or Hawk whenever she has an emotional problem, fully knowing their two greatest problem-solving skills are beating people up and/or killing them.
3. Accepting a well paid position and a luxury life style from her new lover while playing the "please, please
rescue me" game with Spenser.

This book reads like one of those "will thirteen year old Tiffany go to the prom in a limo with Brad the rich boy, or with Mike the poor but popular football hero, or get them both killed" teen novels.

I am an unabashed Parker/Spenser fan. I've read, no devoured, each and every Spenser novel. With that, I recommend A Catskill Eagle to you with my highest rating. It is action packed and scenery is always changing. It goes beyond the lives and backgrounds of Hawk, Spenser, and Susan to reveal the character of each. Robert Parker will really have work to ever beat this, but all Spenser fans are hoping, he'll put aside those other distractions and try. Mark Felderman, Emmetsburg, Iowa

This is the 12th in the Spenser series. The last chapters make the book very good, and up to that point it is absorbing because of the re-appearance of interesting characters. Here we find Hawk's greatest presence since _The Judas Goat_. Hugh Dixon of the same story gives Spenser $10,000 without a question asked. Rachel Wallace, of the book named after her, does research for Spenser.

It was difficult for me to accept the premise that Susan was in such bad shape psychologically that she would risk people's lives in having Hawk come "free" her from her lover and in then sending a dire message to Spenser. However, the story provides an in-depth analysis of Susan's perception of herself, which makes it a bit more understandable. Also, we learn the circumstances of Spenser's birth and find out who raised him.

It was only from Chapter 51 to the end that the story - and the characters' decisions - started to make sense. So, hang in there and finish this one, even if you're tempted to give up early.

Chapter 52 provides a fantastic description of entering a tunnel, having a heavy stone door close behind and descending into the earth - in total darkness. My heartbeat raced and my breathing quickened as I experienced every step Spenser took.

One humorous note, at least for me, is the revelation of Spenser's and Hawk's shoe sizes: 9 and 9 1/2. It seems like awfully small feet for such big men. :)

I just finished Robert B. Parker's "A Catskill Eagle" for the fifth time in as many years. I didn't intend for it to become a yearly ritual, but it has done that and I'm happy for it.

Eagle is the book that makes Spenser epic, that cements the bond between Spenser and Hawk among the great literary friendships. It is Parker's way of enforcing the comparisons between his own Spenser and the unstoppable, nameless knight of Edmund Spenser's "Faerie Queen". It is more than a knight's tale, more than a picaresque, more than a detective novel.

To rescue Susan from her other lover, a rich, cruel and brutal man, Spenser and Hawk cut a swath of destruction across America. In order to secure the distressed damsel, they commit murder and arson and eventually sign on for an assassination. As an example of the depths of love and fealty, this book ranks up there with The Sun Also Rises. As an action-adventure it is perfect. As a hilarious buddy comedy it belongs in the same cabinet as any Hope/Crosby road film.

If there is a weak spot in this novel, it is in Russell Costigan himself, Susan's lover. In his desire to make Russell the very opposite of Spenser, he makes him dislikable, crude, a whiny, insecure neanderthal undeserving of Susan's love or attention. It makes her decision bewildering and unbelievable, despite Parker's attempts to explain.

But this book isn't about Russell. It's not even about Susan. It is about the quest. It is about the things around us that define who we are and how we respond when we are needed. And in that, it succeeds far beyond almost anything else you will read in this genre.

This book takes a look at what friendship and loyality are first with his going too all odds to help his friend Hawk. Then helping Susan out of her situation even though he knows she may not choose to be with him. Even though he has crossed certain lines he still keeps his intergrety.

Okay, so Spencer goes and busts Hawk out of jail. Along the way, these two commit a few dozen felonies and should, by all rights, be put away for life. Then, magically, along comes the FBI and CIA to wipe out all the charges. Huh? It was as if Parker read over what he had written, knew that there was no way out of the corner he had painted Spencer into, and had to come up with a pretty lame escape. I am sorry, but this is not one of his better efforts.

In fiction, in order to make the fiction work, one needs a suspension of disbelief. Under the right circumstances, we can believe in Godzilla and Harry Potter, knowing that these things do not exist. In what is supposed to be realistic fiction, it is best not to stretch belief too far, as was done here.

A lot of the story is interesting enough, but the suspension of disbelief here does not work.

A CATSKILL EAGLE is the twelfth Spenser novel, and it's the first one with a really silly plot. The absurdity of the story makes this book difficult to thoroughly enjoy.

In this novel, Susan Silverman hooks up with a new boyfriend whose father just happens to be a evil arms dealer (and a white supremacist and anti-semitic to boot). Spenser and Hawk try to rescue her and somehow hook up with the CIA (!) who enlist them to covertly kill the arms dealer. The conclusion of this book involves Spenser breaking into the arms dealer's fortress and going through a secret tunnel to kill him.

Anyway, the whole plot of A CATSKILL EAGLE is absurd, and it's only Parker's snappy writing that makes this novel worthwhile. This is one of my least favorite Spenser novels, and I would definitely not recommend it to a newcomer to Parker's work. My advice would be to read PROMISED LAND, LOOKING FOR RACHEL WALLACE or EARLY AUTUMN first. Those novels have much more realistic, compelling plots that show Parker at his best.