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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