Substantial Justice by Daniel Ben-Horin [e-book]

Substantial Justice chronicles the 1985 misadventures of Spider Lacey, a laconic Citroen mechanic, and Siobhan Mollenkopf, a lawyer who has reappeared in Spider’s life after a ten-year hiatus. Things start well, then devolve when Spider’s best friend, a marijuana grower and controversial talk-show host, is murdered. Spider and Siobhan spiral into a world of white supremacists, political activists, lumber tycoons, motorcycle gangs, early online geeks, tree-spikers and law enforcement. The terrain is San Francisco, Mendocino County, New York City, and Arizona. A cross between Carl Hiaasen and E. L. Doctorow, Substantial Justice is a comic thriller and a surprising love story that delights in the vicissitudes of the era.

"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

“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

About the Author

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.