Nobel Prize winner Imre Kertesz might not have had the GOP or even the Bush Administration and its appointees in mind when he wrote his new novel Detective Story. The book is the confession of Antonio Martens, an ex-police torturer for a recently overthrown but unnamed dictatorship. But consider the following excerpt:

“‘…I mean, I actually thought we were serving the law here.’

‘Those in power, sonny boy,’ Diaz corrects me…

To that I say, ‘Up till now I thought the two were the same.’

‘Fair enough,’ Diaz concedes. ‘Only you shouldn’t lose sight of the order.’

‘What order is that?’

‘Those in power first, then the law,’ Diaz says quietly with that inimitable smile of his.”