Justice and ethics...in the eye of the beholder?

"The roar of the .45 shook the room. Charlotte staggered back a step. Her eyes were a symphony of incredulity, an unbelieving witness to truth. Slowly, she looked down at the ugly swelling in her naked belly where the bullet went in. 'How could you?' she gasped. I had only ...a moment before talking to a corpse, but I got it in. 'It was easy,' I said."

Mickey Spillane's [Frank Morrison Spillane--March 9th, 1918 to July 17th, 2006] Mike Hammer was no weenie saddled with a wife and funky dog named Asta like Nick [The Thin Man] or the cerebral Sherlock Holmes but more like the vigilante Inspector Harry Callahan [Dirty Harry]...everyone was an equal opportunity corpse. These two were street smart and had their own sense of dispensing justice that meanders around the fringes of the law. Both of them were full of conundrums worthy of hours of ethical debates.

So, a happy birthday to Mickey Spillane whose books got me into much trouble in high school.