Though I'm not inclined to waste time and space on the big Print On Demand (POD) debate, the issue must be addressed in brief. Yes, Mr. Maistros chose to publish his novel under his own imprint, in conjunction with XLibris. Yes, for some this very fact is tantamount to heresy. And yes, for some this has been a road eventually found to be paved with gold. Chances are, most will navigate a path between these extremes. Two questions only need be asked: Does the author have a plan? and Is the work worthy? Happily, in this case the answer to both questions is yes.

Though it is often associated with ego-driven vanity presses of the past, one has to concede that XLibris produces an attractive package even at its basic level of service, the trade paperback. When a creative author is able to take advantage of his or her control of design, as Maistros was, the final product is nearly indistinguishable from a "traditional" publisher's output. In addition, Maistros owns his own retail outlet, a bricks and mortar venue that allows for hand-selling his book to customers on a daily basis. Coupled with not having to keep a huge inventory in stock, one of POD's advantages, the decision to self-publish is much easier to understand. In this case, it allowed a writer to put his first novel in front of an audience who would not otherwise have seen it. And isn't that what we all want?

While it may be too quirky for a mainstream publisher, THE BIG PUNCH holds some interesting surprises. The assassination of JFK sends Jack Dellus back into his past, where he comes face to face with the devil - or a rat, or a red-haired man who claims to be the devil - and some wickedly evil doings in a rambling house built atop secret levels of cells. Thrust from one horrifying place to another, Dellus is both the victim and the instrument of evil itself, constantly struggling with the current status of his role even while suffering greatly at the hands of an unholy bunch of schemers, not the least of which is his beloved wife, Janice. Jack's own secret past slowly comes to the fore as he is led Dante-like through the various circles of his own personal hell, and the hell which engulfs the world in the time period spanning from the Civil War to the Second World War.

Peopled by Grand Guignol characters both freaks and freakish, the story is slammed into high gear when Jack finds himself on the run, tagged by the press as the notorious Bolton Hill Butcher. The fact that he's not the Butcher, but that he possesses knowledge he himself isn't aware of, allows an odd assortment of low-lives, thugs, criminals, and cops to manipulate him back and forth, a puppet to their whims and a punching bag to their sadistic tendencies. Things happen to Jack that will have the manliest readers cringe, and yet he will persevere long enough to piece together the puzzle-like plot. Finally given glimpses of various pasts on a journey undertaken in the company of Dickensian ghosts, Jack's travails end with an almost literal bomb-dropping revelation, bringing the hallucinogenic story full-circle. Like a bad acid trip through a serial killer's blackened conscience, THE BIG PUNCH manages to shock with the surreal and frighten with the fantastic. Yet Jack Dellus remains a sympathetic and sorrowful figure, trapped within a universe not of his own making.

Though perhaps too loosely edited - plagued as it is by distracting typographical errors - THE BIG PUNCH soars on the hot-vein creativity of its author's vision. As a first novel, it signals the arrival of a new talent willing to bend the rules and abandon convention. As a story, it will stick with you on the basis of its well-rendered nightmare imagery and the horrific deeds done so gleefully by its grotesque cadre of characters.