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.