Beinhart, Larry 1947-

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Beinhart, Larry 1947-

PERSONAL:

Born June 8, 1947, in NY; married first wife (divorced); remarried, wife's name Gillian Farrell; children: James Irving, Anna Genevive. Education: "Wasted." Politics: "Yes." Religion: "No."

ADDRESSES:

Agent—Joy Harris, Chantz-Harris, 888 Seventh Ave., New York, NY 10106.

CAREER:

Writer, commentator, screenwriter. In Your Face, Free Speech TV, cohost and cocreator. Produced and directed commercials and industrial shorts. Political consultant. Isabella Rico (film), 2002, story credit.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Fulbright Fellow; Edgar Allan Poe Award, Mystery Writers of America, 1987, for No One Rides for Free; Edgar Allan Poe Award nomination, 2005, for The Librarian; Gold Dagger Award; gold medal, Virgin Islands Film Festival; two local Emmy Awards (Miami, FL).

WRITINGS:

FICTION; EXCEPT AS NOTED

No One Rides for Free, Morrow (New York, NY), 1987.

You Get What You Pay For, Morrow (New York, NY), 1988.

Foreign Exchange, Crown/Harmony (New York, NY), 1991.

American Hero, Pantheon (New York, NY), 1993, published as Wag the Dog: A Novel, Nation Books (New York, NY), 2004.

How to Write a Mystery (nonfiction), Ballantine Books (New York, NY), 1996.

The Librarian, Nation Books (New York, NY), 2004.

Fog Facts: Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin (nonfiction), Nation Books (New York, NY), 2005.

Contributor to periodicals, including Newsday, Los Angeles Times, Esquire, International Herald Tribune, and Woodstock Times. Author of screenplay, No Place to Hide, 1970.

ADAPTATIONS:

American Hero was adapted for the 1997 film Wag the Dog, directed by Barry Levinson, and starring Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro.

SIDELIGHTS:

Larry Beinhart is a writer of detective fiction in the hard-boiled style of Dashiell Hammett and Mickey Spillane. He is also well known for his political thrillers, such as American Hero, adapted for the 1997 movie Wag the Dog, and The Librarian, from 2004.

The author's first book, No One Rides for Free, is a murder mystery set in the slick world of insider trading and high stakes investment. Tony Cassella is a recovered cocaine addict and former Yale law student who has taken up a career in private investigation. Cassella's on-the-job demeanor is one of pugnacity and straight-shooting. When he sets out to solve a case, he does not let ethics, morals, or propriety stand in the way. Cassella is hired by a wealthy law firm to help with a touchy situation. One of the firm's former lawyers has been arrested for embezzlement and, to avoid a jail sentence, has gone to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to plea bargain. Suspecting that the lawyer may be reporting inside information and illegal trade practices, the firm instructs Cassella to learn more about the situation. The case becomes increasingly intricate, as Cassella encounters murder, deception, and some tough characters.

No One Rides for Free won the Edgar Allan Poe Award from Mystery Writers of America and garnered favorable reviews. While some critics pointed out minor problems with consistency, most admired Beinhart's writing and his ability to construct an intriguing story. A Publishers Weekly reviewer found Tony Cassella an attractive hero and expressed a desire to see more of the character in future books. New York Times Book Review contributor Newgate Callendar opined that Beinhart has the potential to be "one of the better exponents of the tough-guy private-eye school." While Callendar deemed Beinhart's book "a little too ambitious," he did praise the author's skill, stating that "the man really can write."

Beinhart's next novel, You Get What You Pay For, also features the character of Tony Cassella and again examines the arena of high profile crime. In the novel, Cassella embarks on an investigation to uncover the truth about a new presidential cabinet appointment. While traveling across the United States and France, Cassella comes face to face with the intertwined elements of crime, politics, and his own shady relations. A Publishers Weekly critic bestowed considerable praise upon You Get What You Pay For, calling Beinhart "extraordinarily gifted" and citing the book as a "remarkable achievement."

For his third book, Foreign Exchange, Beinhart once again builds his narrative around Cassella. As this book begins, Cassella has retired from investigative work and is living an anonymous life in Austria. He has fathered a child with a French woman and is passing the days skiing. When a suspicious accident leaves a wealthy businessman dead, Cassella is drawn into the situation. As he discovers the elements surrounding the accident, he learns that the CIA, the IRS, and Soviet interests were all involved.

With his 1993 novel, American Hero, Beinhart turned his talents to writing more overtly about politics. As he notes on the Librarian Web site: "I write about politics because it's the greatest game around and it has the most dead bodies. Forget about Hannibal Lector, his numbers pale beside a Bush or a bin Laden. Or even a Clinton." With American Hero, Beinhart posits a sinister motive to the Gulf War of the first President Bush: a manufactured skirmish to help a president with low poll numbers stay in office. Staging of the war is committed to a Hollywood production company instead of actually being fought by the military. Praise came from a Publishers Weekly reviewer who felt that much of the political satire was "delightfully on target." The novel was subsequently made into the feature film Wag the Dog, which New York Times writer Janet Maslin found to be a "poison-tipped political satire that's as scarily plausible as it is swift, hilarious and impossible to resist."

Beinhart further skewers political machinations in his 2004 novel, The Librarian, in which a university librarian, organizing the papers of a super-wealthy conservative, uncovers dirty secrets that could unseat the president at the next election. Such knowledge proves dangerous, however, for a hit squad from Homeland Security is sent to eliminate the librarian. While Library Journal reviewer Larry Ayers thought the novel "reads less like a thriller than a thinly veiled attempt to satirize the current administration," other reviewers had a more positive assessment of the work. A contributor for Publishers Weekly allowed that "some elements are over-the-top," but argued that "the novel completely engages interest as a thriller from start to finish." Similarly, a Kirkus Reviews critic concluded: "Voters in the blue states will find it all irresistible, along with readers from sea to shining sea," and Booklist contributor Barbara Bibel commented: "Beinhart effectively employs a combination of dark humor and frightening, outrageous plot twists."

Beinhart turned to nonfiction for his 2005 Fog Facts: Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin, an examination of what Beinhart sees as the failure of the media to inform the public about the administration of George W. Bush. He takes on subjects from the War on Terror to Vice President Dick Cheney's ties to the Haliburton company and its preferential contracts in Iraq. Erica Iacono, writing in PR Week, predicted that the book would appeal to "those who believe both politics and journalism are in desperate need of reform." A Publishers Weekly contributor, however, thought Fog Facts "offers much more opinion than fact."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, October 15, 1998, Mary Carroll, review of American Hero, p. 397; September 15, 2004, Barbara Bibel, review of The Librarian, p. 211.

Kirkus Reviews, August 15, 2004, review of The Librarian, p. 756; September 15, 2005, review of Fog Facts: Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin, p. 1007.

Library Journal, September 1, 2004, "Q & A with Larry Beinhart," p. 13; October 15, 2004, Jeff Ayers, review of The Librarian, p. 52.

New York Times, December 26, 1997, Janet Maslin, review of Wag the Dog; January 23, 1998, James Barron, "Public Lives: A Waggish Tale in Washington."

New York Times Book Review, May 18, 1986, Newgate Callendar, review of No One Rides for Free.

PR Week, January 9, 2006, Erica Iacono, review of Fog Facts, p. 28.

Publishers Weekly, January 16, 1987, review of No One Rides for Free, p. 70; July 15, 1988, review of You Get What You Pay For, p. 57; August 2, 1993, review of American Hero, p. 60; October 4, 1993, review of American Hero (audiobook), p. 26; September 6, 2004, review of The Librarian, p. 45; September 20, 2004, review of The Librarian, p. 47; September 5, 2005, review of Fog Facts, p. 48.

Variety, December 15, 1997, Godfrey Cheshire, review of Wag the Dog, p. 58.