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Publisher:
PublishAmerica |
Release
Date: November 2003 |
ISBN:
1-59286-413-9 |
Awards:
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Format
Reviewed: Paperback |
Buy
it at Amazon |
Read
an Excerpt |
Genre:
Fiction and Literature - Contemporary |
Reviewed:
2003 |
Reviewer:
Kristin Johnson |
Reviewer
Notes: Reviewer, Kristin Johnson, is the author of CHRISTMAS
COOKIES ARE FOR GIVING, co-written with Mimi Cummins. Her third
book, ORDINARY MIRACLES: My Incredible Spiritual, Artistic and
Scientific Journey, co-written with Sir Rupert A.L. Perrin,
M.D., will be published by PublishAmerica in 2004. |
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To
Protect the Innocent
By Mark
Locke Mills
If,
like Daniel Forester, the protagonist of To Protect the Innocent,
John Walsh chose revenge and killed every pedophile in America after
his son Adam was murdered, the world would be a much scarier place.
There's one teeny problem with Daniel Forester's crime spree, other
than police investigations, FBI closing in, and a dogged reporter
doing a documentary: Daniel feels as if a dark cloud hangs over
him and his son Mike, murdered by a pedophile, drives him insane
with dreams in which Mike tries valiantly to communicate a mysterious
message to Daniel.
Unlike the recently
executed Paul Hill, murderer of an abortion clinic doctor and escort,
Daniel suffers from moral agony, though not when he blows up a group
known as the Guild, an obvious parallel with NAMBLA, the ACLU-represented
Bill O'Reilly-despised pedophile group. In blowing up the Guild,
Daniel ends the short happy pedophile life of tortured Douglas Glassman,
who fully admits he can't give up molesting children. Daniel also
murders Ali Ban (as in Taliban?) Hashemi, the Osama bin Laden/Uday
Hussein of kiddies sex rings who exploits America's dirty little
secret (the ultimate terrorist's attack, perhaps). But Daniel's
crime spree takes him into murkier territory, namely into an affair
under an assumed name with brilliant reporter Susan Jensen, who
has interviewed Daniel's child-protection activist Jan (the John
Walsh of the family) and becomes best friends with her, not knowing
that Jan's husband who refused an interview is actually the man
she has fallen in love with.
The moral complexities
and issues Mills explores are certainly thought-provoking and real
in an age where Britney Spears, "sexploited" singer, is
a teen icon, and we appreciate the conversations about God, as well
as Mike's final message to his father after Dan's spree leads to
his violent fate. However, in lumping homosexuals with pedophiles,
Mills does significant damage to his cause (Gay Pride parades don't
include NAMBLA), and forgets that acquaintances, friends and family,
rather than strangers, make up the majority of child sex-abuse cases-remember
Danielle van Dam? However, parents and critics will appreciate Mills'
sincere effort and final message.
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