Daily Kos

Two Novels, for a Change by SusanG
Sun Sep 21, 2008 at 09:00:20 AM PDT

Salvation Boulevard leaps out of the gate into immediate action: inside prison walls, a defense lawyer, a private investigator, two shady characters from Homeland Security who refuse to give their names, and one American Muslim college student arrested after confessing to murder trade accusations of terrorism, torture and conspiracy. The setting is dark and ominous, the dialogue rapid-fire.

Only one thing is clear: a university religious studies professor, a famed atheist who was working on a paper that would disprove the existence of God, is dead. The death is first ruled a suicide, then a murder, and young Iranian-born Ahmad Nazami has been charged with ... something not entirely clear, because it appears the government wants him tried outside the usual criminal justice system. And oh, yeah. His confession, he claims, came after being seized in the dead of night, hooded and tortured on a plane.

Larry Beinhart, an Edgar Award-winning mystery writer and author of the famed mainstream hit, Wag the Dog, has constructed in Salvation Boulevard a political thriller bristling with contemporary issues that drive the plot and shape the characters as they move through the currently murky justice process. The story is told in the first person through the eyes of Carl Vanderveer, a PI and former cop who's been "born again" after a life of personal and professional corruption, and who's hired by Jewish defense counsel Manny Goldfarb to get to the bottom of the accusations about his young client. Goldfarb, successful and no bleeding heart, believes his client innocent--a rarity--and pushes Vanderveer to dig up the evidence to free him.

In the process of investigation, Vanderveer's own religious beliefs are tested in various ways: through hearing about the message in the missing manuscript the secular professor was working on, through discovering his own pastor seems a little too adamant in advising him to leave the case alone, and finally through the doubt and rebellion of his supposedly obedient Christian wife. The tale unfolds with more killings, appearances by Mexican drug lords, tapes and DVD's surfacing and huge plans of expansion in the wings for Vanderveer's megachurch.

While the plot is engaging and the dialogue crisp, sharp and believable, what keeps you glued to the book, turning page after page long into the night, is the evolution of the PI from stubborn Bible-verse quoter to thinking questioner. His wrestling with gradually dawning doubts, not merely triggered by events, but also by his loosening leash on his own mind and conscience, is really superbly and believably drawn.

This is a perfect novel for fans of the political thriller or mystery genre, with current issues interwoven smoothly into the mix.