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Steve Madison is an industrial consultant to the stars. In plain English, this means that he uses the skills gained in the military in order to protect, and extract, stars from dangerous situations. While he enjoys the money he makes - it allows him to hide out in Colorado in his free time - he does not always enjoy the job or the people he is forced to work for or against. He is a very private, almost lonely, man, which is seen in the novella and two short stories contained within FADE TO TOMORROW. In the novella titled Fade to Tomorrow, Madison is hired to protect Johnny Willow from a drug scheme. Willow is a popular blind musician who rose to fame and then disappeared from the spotlight. Willow was fighting a drug addiction, but is currently clean. Unfortunately, his drummer made a deal to be a drug runner and Willow is caught up in a very ugly and dangerous situation. Willow was aware of the drug smuggling and did nothing to stop it nor did he report it to the authorities. Madison finds Willow being pursued by the DEA and two rival drug lords. It will take wits and determination to protect Willow from the ramifications of his actions and get him to the show on time. The two short stories this book contains, A Hit for a New Age and The Death Blues, are somewhat different from the novella. In these two stories, Madison is involved in very quick adventures, without any plot development or character development. These stories are fewer than 20 pages each and are included primarily to demonstrate the type of cases in which Madison is involved. FADE TO TOMORROW presents an interesting glimpse at Mertz's writing ability. While Mertz does not provide much blatant character development, he does provide fast-moving action-packed stories. Personally I enjoy a touch more detail and development to my books; yet, I still feel as though I understand the type of person Steve Madison is supposed to be. Stephen Mertz has written numerous books under different pseudonyms. FADE TO BLACK is the first book published under the name Stephen Mertz.
Reviewed by Sarah Dudley, February 2004
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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