By Mark McLaughlin
correspondent at qconline.com

  "It surprises me how little people know about the problem of pedophilia." said Mark Mills, 49, author of the new book, "To Protect the Innocent." "That's because it's a topic so vile, people don't want to think or talk about it. But they need to learn the facts, so they can protect their children."
  "To Protect the Innocent" is fiction, but it exposes a national social concern. The novel uses real-life information and statistics to tell a story of what the author calls "America's dirty little secret"-- pedophilia. The book was inspired by the case of Johhny Gosch, an 11-year-old paperboy from Des Moines who disappeared in the early 80's
  Mr. Mills will be signing copies of his book at Borders Books, 4000 E. 53rd St. Davenport, from 2 to 4 p.m. Saturday.
  Mr. Mills hails from Carlisle, Iowa, and now lives in Minneapolis, Minn. He currently works as a professor of mass communications at St. Cloud State University in St. Cloud, Minn. But he used to be an award-winning TV journalist, and during those 13 years of his career, he learned a great deal about the topic of children in danger. 
  "I worked as a journalist for WOI-TV in Des Moines," Mr. Mills said, "and back then I covered the

Gosch story. That was the first missing-child case to make it to national attention."
   The novel is about a couple Dan and Jan Forester who lose their son, Mike, to a child molester. "The mother goes into a deep depression and the father has a bout with alcoholism." Mr. Mills said. "Eventually the mother goes on the speaker circuit and the accurate facts and figures about pedophilia come out through her speeches. Meanwhile, the father wages a one-man war against child molestation."
  According to Mr. Mills, one out of every four girls, and one out of every seven boys, is sexually molested. He also mention that many myths exist concerning this social problem. "Most people think all pedophiles were molested as children." he sad. "and while some were, studies show that possible most weren't. Also folks think that children are usually molested by strangers. But 95 percent are molested by people they know. Between 4,000 and 5,000 kids a year are molested by strangers, but they are still in the minority."
  The 327-page book was released be Publish America, but before that, it was rejected many times because of the controversial subject matter. Mr. Mills tried to get an agent and contacted many, but even they turned it down. "I think that the reson the book was eventually publishjed," he said, "was because of all the news about Catholic priests in the media. People needed to know more about the problem."

By Stephen J. Lee
Herald Staff Writer

  Covering the case of a pedophile 20 years ago inspired then-TV reporter Mark Mills to write a book about it.
  Mills is now an associate professor of mass communications at St. Cloud (Minn.) State University. His book, "To Protect the Innocent," (Publish-America, Baltimore), recently hit the bookshelves. He will be in Barnes & Noble University Bookstore at UND from 2 to 4 p.m. today to sign it and talk about it.
  It's a novella about the way a father seeks revenge against the child sex industry after his son is kid napped, raped and videotaped and then killed by a pedophile.

  Written more like a screenplay perhaps than a typical muder mystery, with rotating vignettes folling weveral characters through the page-turning plot, Mill's books isn't Hemingway. It's got lots of overheated and purple prose, and the reader has to bounce between parallel story lines every few paragraphs. But the story is hard to put down, and it sticks with the reader, even though it's about the worst nightmare any parent can imagine.
  His book is worth a read.

   The Barnes & Noble is near Ralph Engelstad Arena on the north side of campus.

By Mike Kilen
REGISTER STAFF WRITER

  Mark Mills, a former Des Moines TV journalist, was so affected by covering Johnny Gosch's disappearance that 20 years later he has written a novel about the abduction of a child.

Mills

  Gosch was 12 when he was believed to have been abducted near his West Des Moines home. He has never been found; no charges were filed; and the mystery has become state lore.
  Mills, a reporter for WOI-TV from 1980 to 1986, was taken in by the story.
  "I knew the family real closely and his parents real well. It wasn't just the Johnny Gosch case that interested me but the side research I did on pedophilia. I discovered this startling information," said Mills, who will make three Iowa appearances in May to talk about his book "To Protect The Innocent"
  "There were just a lot of facts and figures that blew me away- the fact that over a million children a year are sexually abused. I discovered pedophilia groups existed around the country and, according to some experts, a network that passes around child porn and, at times, children."
  Noreen Gosch still insists her son was taken by child pornographers, she told The Des Moines Register in 2002.
  The series of TV reports on the subject stuck with Mills as he moved on to posts with TV news services in Washington, D.C. and overseas.
  When Mill's wife, Joan, landed a job in Minneapolis and the couple moved to Minnesota in 1991, Mills was jobless. He had time to update his research for a book on the subject that had haunted him while raising his own four children.
  He decided to write a fictional account of child's abduction.
  "When someone reads a fictional story on a serious issue I think it sinks in more," said Mills, who is a mass communications professor at St. Cloud State University, north of the Twin Cities. "and as a broadcast journalist, I was a storyteller."

  Weaving a tale of the abduction of a police detective's son and the family member's reactions came naturally.
  Dan Forester, the father of the child, turns to liquor at first but then sets about finding the man responsible.
  The book alternates between several points of view, including the child's mother and father, pedophile Doug Glassman, a TV reporter and police and FBI agents working the case. Many of the characters are composites of subjects in the Gosch case and others Mills worked on over the years.
  He had studied the reaction of parents and law enforcement to gain insight into the book's characters. And he remembered what one seemingly reasonable man told him once, which became a part of the book: "If anybody did that to my child, I would kill them."
  "I did learn how hard it is on the marriage, not just from the Gosches but from other cases," he said. "it is very difficult, everything from guilt to blaming each other, that a marriage can't withstand such trauma.
  "I also learned that Noreen Gosch did the right thing. You've got to keep it in the news to keep the search going," he said.
  The book, which Mills rewrote five times, nearly came up missing several times. Over 10 years, Mills suffered more than 200 rejections from publishers.
  In 2002, Mills said he read about a new small press that encourages first-time authors but pays them lower royalties. Publish America released the book last December and Mills has marketed it on his own since February. (the book is available at publishamerica.com.)
  What he wants readers to take from the horrifying tale is that pedophilia is widespread. According to his research, 4,000 to 5,000 children each year are sexually molested by strangers in the United States. He is pushing for longer mandatory sentences to keep hard-to-treat pedophiles out of society.
  "I also hope parents hold on to their kids a little tighter and watch them a little closer," he said. "If this book makes a parent in the park keep their eyes on their children the whole time, then I've done my job."

Reporter Mike Kilen can be reached at: mkilen at dmreg.com

• "To Protect The Innocent"
by Mills

  The novel tells the story of a father who chooses revenge when his young son is abducted, abused and killed.
  Mills, who has taught at St. Cloud State for 13 years, was drawn to write the novel after the abduction of an 11-year-old boy in Des Moines, Iowa, drew national attention. Mills, then a television reporter, spent a lot of time covering the story. Also during that time, Mills' children were still young.
  "I realized it was an overlooked problem," Mills said. "I discovered it was a lot more pervasive than I realized."
  In 1992, Mills started to write his book. He rewrote it five times and endured more than 280 rejections.
  The book was published in December 2003.

Mark says pedophilia has become America's dirty little secret. No one wants to talk about it and pedophiles are literally getting away with murder. The authorities can't catch them, the courts are too soft on them, and no one is doing anything about it. No one, that is, except Dan Forester. After his sun is molested and murdered, Dan wages a one-man war on pedophilia, all the while playing cat and mouse with the FBI and his own conscience. Some of the reviews the book has gotten go like this:
"True to his journalistic roots. Mills tells the factual story of pedophilia in a powerful thriller that is both chilling and fascinating." Thompson's Media Review.
"This is a fast-paced book that will find you engrossed and tempted to stay up late into the night reading." BookReview.com
"To Protect the Innocent is a fine first book for author Mills, one that offers a look into a sordid and much ignored aspect of modern society." Denise's Pieces Review.
Mark says he hopes the book makes some people more aware of the problem. He says it is so disgusting that no one wants to think about it and consequently, it gets buried under a heap of other social problems. In the meantime, he says, millions of kids' lives are being ruined and no one is really doing much about it. Currently, you can order the book on-line from the publisher at www.PublishAmerica.com or from www.Amazon.com or www.BarnesAndNoble.com. You might also find it at Barnes and Noble, Borders, Walden Books. or B. Dalton Bookstore in Des Moines or you can have the book store order it for you.