Daniel Ben-Horin made his literary debut as editor of the
Fountain Pen literary magazine of McBurney Junior High School in
New York in 1960, but detoured in favor of a career as a
journalist, early online flaneur, and social entrepreneur. He has
written nonfiction for the New York Times, Mother Jones, the
Nation, and other periodicals. He attended Bronx Science and the
University of Chicago, was fired by the Arizona Republic, edited
the Arizona New Times, organized tenants and media workers in San
Francisco and built, over the course of thirty years, a global
nonprofit called TechSoup. This is his first novel.
"Substantial Justice is a rewarding story of several conflicting
campaigns of love, vengeance and paranoia played out against the
straitened landscape of American cultural and political panic.
Ben-Horin’s novel of suspense kept me flipping pages as if it were
a news crawl of breaking headlines."
—Gregory Maguire, author of Wicked
"It’s not often that a well-plotted thriller abounds with incisive
and amusing social history. In fact, I can’t think of one, or
certainly none in the league of Daniel Ben-Horin’s Substantial
Justice. If you were around in the late ’70s or
early ’80s, particularly in San Francisco, rural Northern
California, or New York City, the tonic shocks of recognition come
thick and fast. If you weren’t, you’re in for a different sort of
treat. Either way, the details are revealing and exact. Then there
is the love story that frames the murder story, plus the weirdly
contemporary far-right militia story and the early-internet
subplot. Best of all, the romantic leads are witty and complicated
and you’ll root for them just as you root for the pure-hearted pair
in a Jane Austen novel. There it is—Raymond Chandler meets Jane
Austen in post-Vietnam America. Excellent stuff."—William Finnegan,
Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Barbarian Days
"Substantial Justice captures the spirit of San Francisco at the
very dawn of the Internet age, long before the arrival of the tech
bros, set in a time when personal computing was just starting to
slip into the public conciousness. Daniel Ben-Horin has woven a
fast-paced tale that offers authentic portraits of both the
American Left and Right, exploring the roots of our current
Trumpian dystopia."
—John Markoff, author of Machines of Loving Grace
"Substantial Justice is a joy to read—who can resist a mix of
intrigue, cannabis, and fraught romance? It’s a literary thriller
with a wildly accurate sense of the era it depicts—and great lines
uttered by great characters. A winner."
—Joan Silber, PEN/Faulkner Award-winning author of Improvement
“Ben-Horin’s comic death rattle of the sixties unleashes a wondrous
set of lost souls who ricochet around the Reagan era following
their bliss but finding only each other—which leads to sex, murder,
and hopeless political causes. As a view of America it is strangely
hopeful.”
—Ron Shelton, writer/director of Bull Durham and White Men Can’t
Jump
"Substantial Justice is a humorous thriller set in a tumultuous
time." —Foreword
"In this remarkable first novel, Ben-Horin offers adept prose with
plenty of moments of humor... The major characters are all fully
realized, down to their small quirks... A deftly composed and
highly enjoyable crime story." —Kirkus
"Substantial Justice by Daniel Ben-Horin deftly blends elements of
dark humor, romance, with those of a deftly crafted and fully
original suspense thriller of a read..." —Midwest Book
Review
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