Eric Formic

Here's the deal: I like "Save the Children" but I can NOT understand why. Mertz' got some sort of mystical intangible authorial quality unmatched by the more technically proficient of the Bolan scribes, and as disgusted as I am by his diction and his sentence construction, as distressed as I am by his cliched metaphors and out-worn Bolanisms, I can't deny that his writing takes a hold of me in way I haven't felt since the first time I read "Monday's Mob." That is, at the end of almost every chapter I found myself breathless, tense, concerned, troubled. Each paragraph, despite obvious flaws (most particulary in the second act of the warehouse scene) leapt, unbidden, off the page and into the realm of my imagination. My right brain kept shouting, "toss this trash aside and take up a more worthy work like "Kill Zone" or "Crude Kill"" but my left brain took over, handling my body like the big guy handles an automag with an extra-large clip. "Keep reading!" it said. "This time, you can't let Bolan down!" Needless to say, I didn't let Bolan down. Take a sit down and take a read of "Save the Children." Also--I work with children, and for those of you who spend a lot of time with young people, this one can be a real eye-opener. Eric Formic