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Loading... Salvation Boulevard: A Novelby Larry Beinhart
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. A born-again PI takes on BIG Religion. Not sure if there is a bona fide genre called religious thrillers, but this should be a the top of the list. The "mystery" may not be too mysterious but it is a good story and a really scary relevancy to the fanaticism creeping into American politics. BTW, the book was made into a not very well received movie. ( )
Just before New Year's, taking a breather from the political exhaust-a-thon and my book launch, I turned to Larry Beinhart's novel, Salvation Boulevard, which Larry had graciously sent over. Glad I did. Larry, a regular on Huffington Post, though best known as the guy who created Wag the Dog, knows how to do two things: entertain, and make us think. Salvation Boulevard is a riveting theological-political thriller, but at its core is the story of a man coming to terms with his own beliefs. A private investigator, a born-again Christian, finds himself trying to clear an innocent man, a Muslim, and becomes entangled with some nasty characters, including a hypocritical megachurch minister, contending with a lynch mob mentality, and seeing his marriage torn apart over faith versus fact. Beinhart, a serious and smart guy, had done extensive research into the paradoxes at the heart of Christian fundamentalism. He blends his intellectual explorations well with a timely look at the loss of civil liberties since 9/11, a brief flash of Jim Thompson-style brutality, a lot of car chases and plot twists, and just the right amount of interpersonal drama and sex. Though Beinhart's humanist sentiments are evident -- he may not appeal to the sorts who like the apocalyptic Left Behind series -- he doesn't preach, and he doesn't make his characters cardboard cutouts. Salvation Boulevard is the sort of book that tears at you in two directions--you're tempted to keep on moving through the fast paced narrative, but you also want to stop and ponder the philosophical issues Beinhart raises. And that dualism is what makes a book work. Awards
Fiction.
Mystery.
HTML:Some cases test a private investigatorâ??s wits, others test his courage, and still others, his character. In Salvation Boulevard, P.I. Carl Van Wagener has found a case that tests them all, and then goes on to test his soul. A professor is dead and a suspectâ??who has confessedâ??is in custody. But nothing is what it seems. After all, the dead man is an atheist professor, the accused an Islamic foreign student, the defense attorney a Jew, and the detective a Born Again Christian. As Carl gets deeper and deeper into the investigation of the death of professor Nathaniel MacLeod, his most basic beliefs and relationships are tried and his world is turned upside down. The mega-church, the pastor, and his new wife who have redeemed Carl from a life of grim debauchery insist on his dropping the case. But he canâ??t stop searching for the real killer and the truthâ??no matter what the personal cost. Salvation Boulevard is a page-turning thriller in the tradition of John Grisham and Richard Condon that grapples with the ecstatic and entropic nature of religious faith in contemporar No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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