SELECTED REVIEWS FOR
Code of Conduct
(Kensington; FICTG edition, 2008)

From Publishers Weekly
Memoirist Merritt (Secrets of a Gay Marine Porn Star) delivers a thought-provoking fiction on the problem of being gay in the military. As Clinton begins putting the don't ask, don't tell policy into place in the early 1990s, closeted and disturbed Naval Investigative Service Agent Jay Gared goes on a mission to catch violators of Article 125 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice—i.e., the rule that states sodomy is a criminal act. Chief Petty Officer Eddie L. Johnson, who has been switching blood test vials for six years to get around the service's mandatory HIV test, gets into Jay's sights. When Eddie catches Jay snooping in his home, Jay shoots Eddie and fakes Eddie's suicide. Shocked friends and family know better, and for a group of close-knit gay and lesbian military personnel, the suicide is a call to arms. Marine Gunnery Sgt. Donald A. Hawkins, a gay rights advocate, vows to learn the truth. Merritt raises provocative questions and delivers a graphic crime tale.
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Review
A novel of romance and intrigue from former Marine Merritt (Secrets of a Gay Marine Porn Star, 2005).Don, a Marine, and his best friend Eddie, a sailor, are part of a closely knit group of gay men and women in uniform. These individuals have made careers for themselves in the military, and the life they have chosen means they must keep an essential part of themselves a secret from all but their closest friends who share that secret. But it's 1993, and there's a glimmer of hope on the horizon: Bill Clinton has just been inaugurated, and he's promised to end the ban on gays in the military. Don's circle of friends has other reasons to be optimistic, too. Eddie is just beginning to emerge from the despair that overwhelmed him when he lost his lover to AIDS, and Don has embarked on an exciting new relationship with the sweet and handsome young Patrick, a marine eager to finally embrace his sexuality. But the happiness Don and his friends experience is short-lived. Clinton's promise turns into the compromise of "Don't ask, don't tell." And the gay marines and sailors of San Diego face a more immediate threat in the form of Jay Gared, an agent for the Naval Investigative Service who will do anything - anything - to expose homosexuals in the military. Merritt makes a persuasive case when he argues that a policy meant to foster cohesiveness actually creates a class of servicemen and servicewomen who can never wholly trust their brothers and sisters in arms. And his depiction of the crushing disappointment and sense of betrayal felt by many gays in the military when Clinton was unable to deliver on his pledge is poignant. But the narrative is a mess. The main characters are flimsy and Agent Gared, the villain, is a cartoon. The plot is both overblown and underdeveloped. The dialogue is, more often than not, painfully stilted, and the pace is frequently excruciating. Intriguing subject, terrible execution.
-- Kirkus Reviews

SELECTED REVIEWS FOR
Secrets of a Gay Marine Porn Star

THE MOST IMPORTANT AUTOBIOGRAPHY BY A GAY MILITARY MAN IN 25 YEARS. Merritt authoritatively documents that, for the Marines he served with, his "secret" sexual proclivity was not a big deal. Having found acceptance where he least expected it, it was all the more torturous when he was "gay-bashed" on the cover of the widest-circulation gay magazine in the U.S. His crime? Modeling in the nude. After surviving 20 years forcibly steeped in the darkest wells of puritan-fringe cult lunacy, Merritt was crassly condemned for "sexual impropriety" by "the gay community" in The Advocate, a sister publication of Freshmen, Men, Unzipped, etc. Merritt's succinct concluding observation (in the book) subtly transcends clichéd idealized notions of Marine brotherhood, gay community, and even Christian "fishers of men." What keeps us alive? Strong friendship.
--Steven Zeeland, Author, The Masculine Marine: Homoeroticism in the U.S. Marine Corps

Merritt has written a powerfully honest and compelling story of living two lives. One is of service to his country and one is of courageously seeking to come to terms with being a sexual human being.
--David Mixner, Political Activist and Author, Stranger Among Friends

If only we all could be this honest about ourselves (and this forgiving of our critics).
--Leslie Lange, Author, Dyke Drama: Your Guide To Getting Out Alive

This is a timely and powerful memoir, an eye-opening survey of wildly incompatible worlds including Bob Jones University, the gay Marine underground, the porn industry, and the circuit party ghetto. At a moment when our country has fallen prey to the lure of various Fundamentalisms, this book issues a compelling indictment of what its author calls "the internal tyranny of fundamentalist dogma." Secrets of a Gay Marine Porn Star spellbindingly charts a young man's perilous journey from the iron-clad, killing certainties of his upbringing to adulthood's hard-won self-acceptance and compassion. Rich Merritt writes incisively and, indeed, often quite sexily about a life of closets, confusion and, finally, the great courage of his convictions.
--Paul Russell, Author, War Against the Animals and The Coming Storm

Rich Merritt writes an honest, inspiring, sexy, funny, and courageous story. It is filled with insights into military life and the workings of the media, but what truly resonates is the account of one man's journey to self-acceptance and the welcoming, joyous embrace of gay culture.
--William J. Mann, Biographer and Novelist, Edge Of Midnight: The Life of John Schlesinger and Where the Boys Are

Inspiring, thought-provoking, and brutally honest, Rich Merritt's story is much more than that of a Marine who found himself at the center of a political firestorm. It is the story of a young man's coming of age, of the hypocrisy of the gay media and political organizations, and, ultimately, of what it means to come to terms with who you are while being pulled in multiple directions.
--Michael Thomas Ford, Author, Tangled Sheets, Alec Baldwin Doesn't Love Me, and other books

Rich Merritt's had an amazing ride, and his memoir rivetingly takes us along on it, tying together his disparate roles - good Christian, porn star, military gay - with saucy wisdom. You couldn't make this stuff up!
--Michael Musto, The Village Voice