Sometimes it’s possible to buy a book for the enjoyment and at the same time help support a vitally important cause. In PROTECTORS 2: HEROES, dozens of authors, artists, poets and illustrators have joined together and donated their efforts to help protect children from physical, sexual and emotional abuse. All money from the sales of the book go to PROTECT, the political lobby of the National Association to Protect Children, whose victories include the Circle of Trust Act, which closed a New York State loophole that allowed child predators to get out of jail, and the HERO Corps, which hires wounded vets to assist law enforcement in hunting online predators.

In 2012, PROTECTORS: Stories to Benefit PROTECT, also edited by Thomas Pluck, was released with 41 stories. Pluck did not anticipate doing a sequel, but sadly the need for it has not diminished. He writes in his foreword to the second volume: “When early humans sat around campfires outside their caves, they invented monsters; today, to quote contributor Andrew Vachss, ‘We make our own monsters. The formula is frighteningly simple: Take child abuse or neglect, especially at the hands of those constituted by the laws of man and nature to protect their own, and let the government either ignore or exacerbate the situation.’”

But it would be a mistake to write off PROTECTORS 2: HEROES as a depressing or heavy read. Indeed, it’s the opposite. Credit for that must go to the editor, an accomplished novelist and short story writer. Pluck told me: “I asked the writers NOT to write about child abuse. Fifty-five stories about child abuse would be a hard sell. But that is everyone’s first instinct, to write a revenge story or an eye-opener. There are a handful of those across both anthologies, but the only criterion was that they be good stories. Most of my friends are crime writers, so crime fiction is represented heavily, but we have literary, fantasy, horror, science fiction, suspense, thrillers, humor memoirs, essays. Something for everyone.”

"[T]his is a book that everybody can enjoy, whether you read it straight through or dip your toe into random pages.... There are so many great stories in this collection that it’s almost unfair to single any out."

Indeed, this is a book that everybody can enjoy, whether you read it straight through or dip your toe into random pages. There is an eclectic mix of writers: from the long-established, like Vachss, Joyce Carol Oates and Joe R. Lansdale, to a new generation of up-and-coming writers, like Reed Farrel Coleman, Alex Segura, Terrence McCauley, Angel Luis Colon and Pluck himself.

There are so many great stories in this collection that it’s almost unfair to single any out. So I’ll just mention a few of my favorites. Lansdale writes in “Doggone Justice”: “These days even defending yourself can be tricky. It seems that a butt whipping in the name of justice has mutated to three shots from an automatic at close quarters and three frames of bowling with your dead head. There are too many nuts with guns these days, and most of them just think the other guy is nuts. An armed society is a polite society only if those armed are polite. Otherwise, it just makes a fellow nervous.”

Amen.

Segura takes us into a world where the mild-mannered teacher with a secret agenda in “Lone” ends up taking out a street gang in Queens, New York, to help a student. In “Deceit,” Oates writes a dark, dark story about a mother who learns the hard truth about what is happening to her teenage daughter and her role in it.McCauley sets his noir story in Kansas City in 1931. Pluck in “Little Howl on the Prairie” tells the tale of Arngrim the Berzerker, a mystery man who shows up to help a small girl in a rural town that is having problems with wolf pack attacks in blizzards. Or are they wolves?

Pluck has the stranger say: “I’ve lived an awful long time, and the hardest thing for folks to face is the enemy inside their walls. The kind that fights under no flag, and looks like your brother or sister, but sees your flesh for their appetites. That betrayal stings so deep, some side with the enemy rather than face the truth of their accuser. We have to hunt them down. No one will believe us.”

PROTECTORS 2: HEROES is filled with great writing that you will enjoy. During this holiday season, it would make a great gift for the readers on your list --- and you will know that by buying it, you are helping a good cause. Congratulations to Thomas Pluck and all the fine writers who donated their talents to make this book possible.