From the Edgar Award-winning novelist and author of Wag the Dog and The Librarian comes a new mystery novel about a private investigator and a case that tests his courage, character and soul. The victim is an atheist professor, the main suspect — who has confessed and is in custody — a Muslim foreign student, the defense attorney a Jew and the detective a born-again Christian. The New York Times says of Beinhart, "The man can really write."

As P.I. Carl Van Wagener 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.

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 contemporary America.

"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.)" Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

The murder victim: an atheist. The accused: Muslim. The lawyer: Jewish. The detective: Born Again Christian. A thriller about death, faith, and God — from one of America's best mystery writers.

Some cases test a private investigator'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 suspect--who has confessed--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 can't stop searching for the real killer and the truth--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 contemporary America.

Larry Beinhart is best known as the author of Wag the Dog (originally published as American Hero) on which the film starring Robert DeNiro, Dustin Hoffman, Willie Nelson and Woody Harrelson was based. His No One Rides for Free (1986) received the 1987 Edgar Award for Best First Novel. His most recent book, Fog Facts, a work of nonfiction, examines why some important, even striking, truths are overlooked by the media and the culture at large. Beinhart spent two years in Oxford, England, where he was the Raymond Chandler Fulbright Fellow at Wadham College. He is a regularly featured blogger on Huffingtonpost.com and his articles have appeared in the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, and the Chicago Tribune. He resides in Woodstock, New York, with his wife and two children.