Mack Bolan was simply a man who could command himself.

When I wrote War Against the Mafia as a Vietnam statement, I didn't expect much to come of it-but quite a bit came and it captured me. I continued the books to feed the obvious hunger that was there for heroic fiction.

Every writer is working from his own individual world view, and that can become as characteristic as a fingerprint.

Ashton Ford will come as something of a surprise to those of you who have been with me over the years. This is not the same type of fiction that established my success as a novelist; Ford is not a gutbuster and he is not trying to save the world from anything but its own confusion. There are no grenade launchers or rockets to solve his problems and he is more of a lover than a fighter. I have grown, I hope, both as a person and as a writer, and I needed another vehicle to carry the creative quest. Ashton Ford is that vehicle.

Poetry can be the bridge, the crossover point in the mind between the physical and the spiritual. A place where the two can meet.

Mack Bolan was simply a man who could command himself.

Life is often more a sweat than a pleasure but, paradoxically, it is the sweat that gives true meaning to all of life's pleasures. This is the message from Mack Bolan, book after book, and it is the only thing dignifying this type of fiction.