A professor is dead. A suspectwho has confessedis in custody. But nothing is what it seems. The dead man is an atheist, the accused an Islamic foreign student, the defense attorney a Jew, and the detective a Born Again Christian. As the detective gets deeper and deeper into the investigation of the death of the professor, his most basic beliefs and relationships are tried, his world is turned upside down. And yet he cant stop searching for the real killer and the truthno matter what the personal cost.
Salvation Boulevard, movie tie-in: A Novel
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Best known for American Hero (1994), the jaunty political novel that became the film Wag the Dog, Beinhart offers something less jaunty but definitely more ambitious in this splendid religious legal thriller. When Ahmad Nazami, a Muslim scholarship student at the University of the Southwest, confesses under duress to the murder of Nathaniel MacLeod, an atheist philosophy professor, PI Carl Van Wagener, a born-again Christian, agrees to help Manny Goldfarb, a celebrated Jewish defense lawyer, prove Nazami's innocence. Van Wagener, a member of charismatic pastor Paul Plowright's Cathedral of the Third Millennium, is soon on the trail of a missing manuscript MacLeod wrote disproving God's existence. In a beautifully understated author's note, Beinhart lays out the factual basis for his provocative morality tale and invites readers to visit his Web site, which includes a forum for an ongoing dialogue about religion, irreligion, faith, belief, and their intersections with politics, war, money, life, and death. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Booklist
Beinhart tells the tale of recovered alcoholic Carl Van Wagener, a man torn between the comfort of belonging to his evangelical megachurch and his respect for the Constitution and the rule of law. He is an ordinary man, a cop turned private investigator, and he is ill-equipped to confront the logical, theological, and philosophical dilemmas that arise when he is asked to investigate the murder charge against a Muslim student arrested for killing a local professor who questioned the existence of God. But pressure from within his megachurch—and from his true-believing wife—to drop the case, force him to question faith, religion, marriage, and even the beneficent God who will welcome him into a Christian-only heaven. Beinhart does a fine job describing the treacly paradise of the Church of the Third Millennium and a finer job ratcheting up the pressure on his fragile hero. A few plot elements seem over the top—e.g., “privatizing” a university’s endowment—but Beinhart adds notes showing that George Bush did exactly that. Deep-dyed evangelicals will be angered, but many others will be unable to put this one down. --Thomas Gaughan
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
17 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Yep. This is one of those can't put it down once you start it novels. The author, who wrote the book the movie Wag The Dog, was adapted from, has come out with a sure winner that kept me up waaay past my bedtime.
Beinhart is a very savvy political observer in the real world, writing for huffingtonpost, opednews and other political sites. But he is brilliant when it comes to weaving stories that are built upon the politics, the characters and issues of the day.
Salvation Boulevard is a mystery and a.... not a thriller, though it has plenty of thrilling moments, not an adventure, though the story takes you on quite a ride... I'm not sure exactly how you'd categorize it. A theopolitical action story?
Beinhart walks you into the world of the evangelical right wing megachurch, into the mind of its members and its leaders and he creates a very believable collection of characters who learn to love, hate or despise.
Even if you're not interested in politics, there's a great story here. I understand it's been optioned to be made into a movie and that's not at all surprising. It should be put on the screen and when it is, it will be a hit I'll be sure to watch.
Beinhart is a very savvy political observer in the real world, writing for huffingtonpost, opednews and other political sites. But he is brilliant when it comes to weaving stories that are built upon the politics, the characters and issues of the day.
Salvation Boulevard is a mystery and a.... not a thriller, though it has plenty of thrilling moments, not an adventure, though the story takes you on quite a ride... I'm not sure exactly how you'd categorize it. A theopolitical action story?
Beinhart walks you into the world of the evangelical right wing megachurch, into the mind of its members and its leaders and he creates a very believable collection of characters who learn to love, hate or despise.
Even if you're not interested in politics, there's a great story here. I understand it's been optioned to be made into a movie and that's not at all surprising. It should be put on the screen and when it is, it will be a hit I'll be sure to watch.
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
You probably won't find Larry Beinhart signing copies of his new novel, SALVATION BOULEVARD, at a mega-church near you. That's because Beinhart takes American right-wing Christianity by the scruff of the neck and shakes the tar out of it in this rip-roaring, disturbing post-9/11 tale of deception, greed, xenophobia, faith, doubt, apostasy and murder.
Carl, a former cop, his wife, Gwen, and his adolescent daughter from a previous marriage, Angie, belong to the Cathedral of the Third Millennium, a 6,400-member fundamentalist mega-church built of glass and steel and shepherded by the Rev. Paul Plowright. (Give you one guess who the bad guy is.)
Renouncing drugs, alcohol, casual sex and thinking for himself, Carl gives Plowright credit for saving his life and Jesus the glory for saving his soul. Harboring nary a doubt (uncertainty is for the faithless), Carl abides, for a time, in the love of God, family and the flock at CTM.
But abiding time starts ticking down when Carl is hired to investigate a murder that leads him into temptations of the flesh and the spirit. Here's how Carl describes his situation, "Look, I'm a Christian working for a Jewish lawyer who's working for an Islamic kid to find out who really killed the atheist. It's America, right?"
Beinhart, whose previous novels include WAG THE DOG and THE LIBRARIAN, both must-read page-turners for political junkies, takes aim this time at scoundrels behind stained glass windows who've had it coming.
For a high-speed excursion of America's search for meaning in these strange times, take SALVATION BOULEVARD. Beinhart will have you hollering "Amen!"
Carl, a former cop, his wife, Gwen, and his adolescent daughter from a previous marriage, Angie, belong to the Cathedral of the Third Millennium, a 6,400-member fundamentalist mega-church built of glass and steel and shepherded by the Rev. Paul Plowright. (Give you one guess who the bad guy is.)
Renouncing drugs, alcohol, casual sex and thinking for himself, Carl gives Plowright credit for saving his life and Jesus the glory for saving his soul. Harboring nary a doubt (uncertainty is for the faithless), Carl abides, for a time, in the love of God, family and the flock at CTM.
But abiding time starts ticking down when Carl is hired to investigate a murder that leads him into temptations of the flesh and the spirit. Here's how Carl describes his situation, "Look, I'm a Christian working for a Jewish lawyer who's working for an Islamic kid to find out who really killed the atheist. It's America, right?"
Beinhart, whose previous novels include WAG THE DOG and THE LIBRARIAN, both must-read page-turners for political junkies, takes aim this time at scoundrels behind stained glass windows who've had it coming.
For a high-speed excursion of America's search for meaning in these strange times, take SALVATION BOULEVARD. Beinhart will have you hollering "Amen!"
10 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Here's a book for all of us who missed a subway stop trying to finish Crime and Punishment, and have been looking to repeat the experience ever since. Beinhart, too, melds a meditation on religion into a novel of nail-biting suspense. More importantly, to those of us who see red when we hear the word fundamentalist, Beinhart creates a believable protagonist who allows us to understand why people turn to megachurches -- a feat I would have have honestly said was impossible. Who says a novel of ideas can't be fun?
Most Recent Customer Reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Salvation Boulevard
Really enjoyed his book, The Librarian which I rate 4.5 stars, but whilst this was reasonably enjoyable
not a must read .
not a must read .
Published 4 months ago by John Perrow
1.0 out of 5 stars
Ridicoulously Heavy-Handed
This is one of the most over-the-top, heavy-handed, smack-you-in-the-head-with-a-brick books that I've ever read. Here is the thinking behind it. Read more
Published 14 months ago by Amy L
4.0 out of 5 stars
Enjoyed this book
I enjoyed this book so much so that once I started reading it I didn't put it down for 2 days I found myself bringing the book to the table and reading it while I was eating I... Read more
Published 20 months ago by Tinker
2.0 out of 5 stars
Bad Guys
I wanted to like this book . . . it is an interesting, thoughtful premise. But the plot wobbled all over the place, the initial plot mechanic got lost . . . Read more
Published on September 1, 2010 by Richard Berg
3.0 out of 5 stars
Few surprises, an annoying loose end
First, I must acknowledge that I've never had any contact with evangelical Christians. So I can't judge whether the author's portrayal of their beliefs is accurate and fair. Read more
Published on April 19, 2009 by Kathleen E. Kelly
3.0 out of 5 stars
What's the big deal? Tasty bubblegum, nothing more
So what's the big deal with this book? My aunt saw some write-up or heard about it on NPR and felt compelled to tell me about it. Read more
Published on March 12, 2009 by B. J. Jones
4.0 out of 5 stars
makes you think, if you're not afraid to
a good story about what can happen when one is afraid to create her/his own religious views but instead rather blindly follows a religious leader; it's also about a person that... Read more
Published on February 17, 2009 by timwtheos
5.0 out of 5 stars
More of this wonderful writer
I have regularly checked for new Beinharts for years, ever since the wonderful Tony Casella trilogy (and why why why are they out of print? Read more
Published on February 16, 2009 by Alice Chalmers
1.0 out of 5 stars
A Thinker's Mystery but Tar Brushes All Christians as all having a...
Salvation Boulevard is truly a thinking person's mystery, and it has its exciting moments. The CTM sex/murder conspiracy with Jorge Guzman de Vaca insinuating his business... Read more
Published on February 6, 2009 by Shadowfax
5.0 out of 5 stars
Religion's dark shadows
I enjoyed Larry Beinhart's "Salvation Boulevard" more than any book I've read in a while, dropped everything and stayed up to 1 a.m. to finish it. Read more
Published on December 13, 2008 by Carol L. Marsh
