Customer Reviews

Salvation Boulevard: A Novel

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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!"

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?

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. I intend to check out the discussion he encouraged at his website, but I haven't found time to do it yet.

Given that...in a story of murder and mayhem, I hope for surprises. Here, I was only truly surprised by one plot development, which takes place less than midway through the book. I'm not saying I anticipated all the specifics. But the characters I expected (from the way they'd been portrayed all along) to be guilty of wrongdoing were in fact guilty of wrongdoing.

Early on, we're told a minor character has insisted on something's being worded in a certain way, rejecting another possibility. I kept waiting for that to have some plot relevance, but it never does.

Finally, while I can understand the author's wanting to end the story the way he did, the denouement was too long and dragged-out for my taste.

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. The first person protagonist is an evangelical Christian, member of a Texas megachurch, ex-cop and ex-alcoholic private detective. He's working for a Jewish liberal lawyer, who is defending an American Muslim student accused of murdering an atheist college professor who was about to publish a book on the human need to cling to religious illusions.

I'm an atheist raised as a fundamentalist Christian, so I was uncomfortable at first finding myself inside the mind of an evangelical Christian. But that's the protagonist, of course, not the author. Anyway, I was already hooked. The story unfolds over the wreckage of our legal system left after eight years of Bush's "war on terror" and the Bill of Rights. Using the Muslim student's arrest - he's already being called a terrorist - as the case in point, the detective's charismatic superstar minister paints a picture of holy war between "them and us," and the church brings every kind of pressure on the detective to drop the case. The detective, who believes the student innocent, is having trouble with his faith. And I'll leave the rest of the story for you to enjoy, while I read the author's other two books, "Wag the Dog" and "The Librarian."

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?) and to find this so soon after the wonderful "The Librarian" was a joy and a treat. Beinhart's books bear reading and rereading, with his sophisticated take on politics and society underpinned by wonderful plotting and characters you care about. He writes like an angel and he is both funny and profound - this book has a born again cop trying to do what's right and honest even though it means acting against the pastor and church that saved him. It is as good as any of his books - and that's saying something.

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. She then was so excited she bought it for me for Christmas. I was excited to pick it up given Beinhart's pedigree - loved Wag the Dog.

But this was just a simple popcorn pulp fiction murder "mystery". Nothing more, nothing less. Full of opposing stereotypes, hoping to 'shock' its way onto the best seller list with someone finally bashing the nation's churches, making a comment on rendition and muslim prejudice, but delivering only bubblegum. That's fine - reasonably tasty bubblegum. But with all the hype, I expected much more.

Just an okay, quick read, that you will never think about again.

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 gradually gains the courage to do just that, to critically and honestly think about what he believes and then to modify his beliefs when intellectual honesty demands it. the story is set in the context of a kind of conservative christianity but it could equally be judiasm or islam or any religion. a quotation from bertrand russell is rather apt here: In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted. here you get an enjoyable story about a murder and the finding of the murderer along with some intellectual stimulation. highly recommended.

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 rarely if ever do that but this is a well written book and just when I thought I could put the book down for a bit something else surprising happened and I had to keep reading. Of course, being a freethinker might have made me more interested in the outcome and the dialog but the main story was excellent on it's own. It doesn't surprise me that they made this into a movie.

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 . . .and I didn't like the protagonist . . .and most of the other characters. It will be interesting to see what he projected movie does with this unfortunate mish-mash . . . RHB