THE EMERSON HIGH VIGILANTES

There's trouble at Emerson High, but the principal looks the other way, allowing serious crime to continue unchecked. Brock Reinhardt (rich kid, excellent student, and candidate for school president) and his friends enlist the aid of narrator Paul Ross (editor of the school paper) in their campaign against crime, forming the ""Knights of Honor"" as crimebusters. But their tactics quickly get out of hand: they become vigilantes, complete with a hit list and a recipe for a pipe bomb. Paul, who has always been leery of the project, sees the similarities between the KOH and the KKK but doesn't know what to do about it. Miklowitz's unbiased look at vigilantism provides food for thought; however, it is flawed by a jarring switch from past to present tense in the last two chapters. Moreover, it is debatable whether the KOH is punished severely enough (the judge gives the boys six months of community service and requires them to pay for actual damage), but what constitutes appropriate severity of punishment is only one of the many issues taken up by this page-turner. A serious, needed book.