vrijdag 7 augustus 2015

Book Review To The Promised Land

TTPL_cv_HRTitle: To The Promised Land
Author: Michael Boylan
Genre: Literary Fiction / Mystery
Every student leaving the protected grounds of school wonders: must I now throw away my ideals, or can they guide me through the rough-and-tumble city? The philosopher Socrates’s descent into the bloodsports of business and politics was called “ketabasis.” But for the old college friends Moses and Peter, it is betrayal and murder found in Michael Boylan’s fast-paced and gripping novel, To the Promised Land. Can their friendship, and their morals, survive in the Washington world of corporate crime, backstabbing bosses, floundering do-gooder groups, and a media ravenous for scandal? The old adage, “Do no harm,” is pulverized in Washington’s internecine power-struggles: for nearly every action brings an unexpected harm, and several enemies. Moses leaves the law, seeking atonement for shielding a company that poisoned a town; Peter leaves the small world of the campus, and takes up a controversial campaign to alter affirmative action, seemingly to bring about “the greater good.” Their threads of ethics must do battle against lawyers, private detectives, secretive lobbyists and, looming over all, the charge of first-degree murder. Boylan sets philosophical passions, and an engaged dialogue about forgiveness, inside a film-noir world, where affection, family loyalty, and trust come under threat. Propulsive and witty, To the Promised Land is smart about ideas, and smart about people negotiating justice and power in public life.
—David Gewanter. Professor of English, Georgetown University.
Michael Boylan’s thought-provoking novel, “To the Promised Land,” is a gem. Read it for its suspense-filled, fast-paced action, for the philosophic insights its characters raise as easily as they breathe, or for probing its main mysteries: why did Moses Levi disappear; why did he send his journal to his college roommate; and, more profoundly, how can one heal a guilty conscience or live without harming others?
—Virginia L. Warren, Professor of Philosophy, Chapman University

Review:  Moses and Peter are two old college friends who must now survive in the world of corporate crime, battling murder and betrayal while trying to remain friends and not lose their morality along the way. And while they try to stay true to who they are, they must battle lawyers detectives, and the charge of murder. Each character has their own path to take, but will it lead them to the promised land? 

What a griping, action-filled, suspenseful book. It packs so much that it's hard to begin with explaining all that is going on. I also loved the character's philosophical insights, especially Peter's, and I wanted to know what was going to happen. A pleasant surprise.

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