Larry Beinhart is an American author. He is best known as the author of the political and detective novel American Hero, which was adapted for the political-parody film Wag the Dog. Directed by Barry Levinson, it starred Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro, Anne Heche, William H. Macy, Denis Leary, Kirsten Dunst, Woody Harrelson, and Willie Nelson. The New Yorker called the novel "a tour de force of satirical fiction."
Beinhart is a Fulbright Fellow. He's won the Edgar Award, the Gold Dagger, the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière, and been shortlisted for the Edgar two more times, and for the Shamus Award.
"Salvation Boulevard," his most recent novel, is currently in production with Pierce Brosnan, Greg Kinnear, Jennifer Connelly, Marisa Tomei, Isabelle Fuhrman, Ed Harris, and Jim Gaffigan. The director is George Ratliff, the producer is Cathy Schulman. It is scheduled for a 2011 release.
The tag-line for the novel is, "The corpse is an atheist professor, the suspect is an Islamic foreign student, the defense attorney is a Jewish lawyer, the investigator is a born-again Christian - the mystery is God." It is a serious study of religion, faith, and the classic questions of philosophy wrapped inside a comic thriller.
Beinhart also writes screenplays, most recently an adaptation of his own novel, "The Librarian." (“Think John Grishom meets Jon Stewart.” Rolling Stone.)
His non-fiction books are: "Fog Facts: Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin," Nation books. Robert McChesney called it, "The media book against which all others will be measured.” "How To Write A Mystery,"1997 Ballantine Books “The best genre specific book on writing we’ve seen.” Denver Post He's had op-ed pieces and articles in the Esquire, New York Times, International Herald Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Baltimore Sun, Newsday, Huffingtonpost, Alternet, Buzzflash, Common Dreams, and others. He writes a monthly column on politics for Chronogram.
No One Rides for Free (1986) received the 1987 Edgar Award for Best First Novel. "Foreign Exchange," was listed on the NY Times Notable Books of Year
Beinhart spent two years in Oxford, England, where he was a Raymond Chandler Fulbright Fellow in Detective and Crime Fiction Writing at Wadham College. An avid skier and sometime instructor at Hunter Mountain in New York State, Beinhart spent one winter in St Anton, Austria researching Foreign Exchange and parts of several winters instructing in Les Trois Vallées, France.
He currently resides in Woodstock, New York with his wife and two children.
He is represented by Richard Pine, Inkwell Management, New York.