God Is a Bullet: A Novel

An ex-member of a bloodthirsty cult must pair up with a police officer to take down the group’s murderous leader in this dark, wrenching thriller about personal conviction, retribution, and survival. Soon to be a major motion picture starring Jamie Foxx, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Maika Monroe, and January Jones “In a word: Wow. God Is a Bullet is a kick-ass, in-your-face tour de force from start to finish.”—Harlan Coben, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Match Case Hardin has stared into the face of evil and lived. Now Case learns that the satanic cult that turned her from a lost child into a broken, drug-addicted shell of a woman has taken down more victims, butchering a man and a woman in their suburban home and abducting a young girl.  Fueled by rage and the need to redeem her life, Case teams up with the missing girl’s father—a straight-arrow desk cop named Bob Hightower—to track the girl down.  With Case as his mentor, Hightower will begin a hunt through the satanic underground few have encountered and even fewer have survived, to pry his child from the hands of a madman. WINNER OF THE CWA NEW BLOOD DAGGER AWARD • EDGAR AWARD FINALIST

From Publishers Weekly

Strung-out on junk and tattooed with the dates of helter-skelter-style deaths they've caused, the kids who walk "The Left-Handed Path" talk Satanic talk and spread terror through the very Christian Southern California town of Clay. This tautly paced and harrowing debut thriller begins with the cult's murder of desk cop Bob Hightower's ex-wife and her husband, and the kidnapping of his 14-year-old daughter, Gabi. Desperate and driven, Hightower takes a leave of absence to look for the abducted girl. Fresh out of leads?his search has been stymied by a fellow policeman who's in league with the cult?Hightower meets Case, a 29-year-old, severely traumatized ex-heroin addict who is unable to forget her horrifying experiences as the sexual slave of the demonic Cyrus, who heads the bloodthirsty self-styled "tribe" that controls the local drug trade from a remote desert outpost. With Case's help, Hightower goes undercover and infiltrates the group. Though some of the book's early passages seem melodramatic, the tale becomes riveting as the unlikely duo follow Cyrus and his gang to hell and back. Teran does a fine job of contrasting Case's struggle to overcome Cyrus's pervasive presence in her mind with Hightower's ethical dilemma at taking orders from a junkie. The moral twists and turns of the searing narrative are jolting; the pair are even forced to commit murder for Cyrus before a climactic showdown in the desert. Cynical and DeLillo-like in its observations, paced with present-tense immediacy, Teran's hard-boiled prose does not belittle the tragedy at this novel's core. Not for the faint-hearted, the book is as addictive as illegal substances. Agent, David Hale Smith. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This first novel is pretty standard thriller fareAcorrupt sheriff John Lee Bacon hires bad guy Cyrus to kill his wife's lover, Sam. But Cyrus also kills Sam's wife, Sarah, and kidnaps Gabi, Sarah's teenaged daughter from her first marriage to Bob. Bob just happens to be a cop working for Sheriff Bacon, and now Bob must rescue his daughter from Cyrus. This vicious circle is embedded in a dark cult world of drugs, pornography, and violenceACyrus is a Charles Manson-like guru with a band of drugged-out, bloodthirsty followers who pursue the satanic "Left-Handed Path." This gives Teran an excuse to focus on graphic violence, depraved sex, and gross obscenities, demonstrating his "toughness." But he often pushes a metaphor too hard (describing Bob's truck as a "tin-sided garden of agony cruising in second gear") and sounds ridiculous instead of hard-bitten. At once silly and distasteful; not recommended.ARebecca House Stankowski, Purdue Univ. Calumet Lib., Hammond, INCopyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

A small-town cop teams up with a former member of a southern California Satan-worshiping cult who helps him take back his kidnaped daughter. Quietly upright police officer Bob Hightower is shocked to his boots when he makes a friendly Christmas-morning visit to the desert home of his ex-wife and her husband. Not only have both been murdered, but the family dogs are stuffed head-first into the toilet; their horse has been mutilated; and Hightower's 14-year-old daughter Gabi is missing. We're told that Bobs superior, the sleazy Captain John Lee Bacon, knows not only why the killings occurred, but also enjoys a special relationship with sadistic monster Cyrus, the Manson-like leader of half a dozen tattooed, pierced, and drug-crazed psychopaths who call themselves the Cult of the Left-Handed Path. Bacon discourages Hightower from running down leadsand Hightower persists, digging up Case Hardin, a former Left-Hander trying to kick her heroin habit in an East L.A. shelter for abused women. Hardin, like just about everyone else in this overblown blood-splatterer, clogs her crude soliloquies about evil and social complacency with obscenities and rock-n-roll lyrics. Still, she eventually helps Hightower to find Cyrus. Along the way, Hightower, a semi-devout Christian, has to pass some pretty gruesome rites of passage, get himself tattooed, and cultivate his bloodlusta sight savored by motor-mouth Cyrus. He finally discovers that Cyrus supplies drugs, sex, and the occasional murder-for-hire to Bacon and others. Absconding with funds from a brutal robbery, Hightower and Case offer to swap swag for Gabi, inciting a flame-lit shoot-out. Ludicrously bad prose (a salt flat is ``laid barren as if it were the hub of a nuclear holocaust or that Devonian moment when the earth was catapulted out of mystery and all was flung aside''). And as for the plotting . . . when it isn't awful bloody, its bloody awful. (First printing of 75,000) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From the Publisher

"[A] tautly paced and harrowing debut thriller . . . Cynical and DeLillo-like in its observations, paced with present-tense immediacy, Teran's hard-boiled prose does not belittle the tragedy at this novel's core. Not for the faint-hearted, the book is as addictive as illegal substances." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)"Boston Teran writes like an angel, shining a clear light on the deeds of the devil in this hunt-and-chase thriller. God is a Bullet is a stunner of a suspense novel, body-slamming its way down an uncharted rocky terrain of pain, fear, horror, bravery and redemption . . .Teran's voice is fresh, unique and explosive. He has delivered a work that is too good, too important and too painful to be ignored." -- Lorenzo Carcaterra, author of Sleepers and Apaches"God is a Bullet defies description. Nothing I have ever read, NOTHING, has filled me with the exciting sense of dread and fear I felt while reading this extraordinary first novel. Everything about this book is perfect: the story is astounding, the characters are etched in my brain, the real-time style is riveting, and Teran's dialogue is carved out of granite. It will be a long while before I get this story and these characters out of my head. It is just a terrific experience." --William Diehl, author of Reign in Hell and Primal Fear"God is a Bullet is an intense, emotional reading experience, an unrelenting thriller populated with full-bodied, deeply-drawn characters. Boston Teran locates the heart beneath the darkness and delivers something human and true." --George Pelecanos, author of The Sweet Forever"In a word: Wow. God is a Bullet is a shotgun blast to the gut--a kick-ass, in-your-face tour de force from start to finish. Every page carries a fresh wallop and a nightmarish jolt. BostonTeran's haunting words stay with you long after you turn the final page. I'm still stunned." --Harlan Coben, Edgar Award-winning author of Fade Away and One False Move"God is a Bullet is a go-juice pumped, drag-you-down-the-street thriller that is also a haunting novel about survival of the human spirit. It has claimed a permanent part of my imagination. I can't let it go... honestly, I don't want to let it go. It's that good." --Fred Willard, author of Down on PonceComments from booksellers:"I love it . . .a truly original, if not slightly disturbing, novel." --Matt Hawthorne, Booksource in St. Louis"God is a Bullet is an incredible piece of work! A halogen light in a room full of dim bulbs, it has blockbuster written all over it. Teran--who has a talent for growing memorable characters from unlikely material--had my rapt attention from the first page through to the end." --Maggie Griffin, Partners & Crime bookstore in Manhattan

From the Inside Flap

steland of the southern California desert and the badlands of Mexico: these are the settings for Boston Teran's searing debut novel--a dark, wrenching thriller about personal conviction, retribution, and survival.Fall 1970. In a remote playa a twelve-year-old boy stumbles upon a hideous scene in a dust-strewn trailer: the savage murder of a woman that will remain unsolved for twenty-five years.Christmas week, 1995. A fourteen-year-old girl is kidnapped by a bloodthirsty satanic cult that calls itself the Left-Handed Path. The leader, Cyrus, considers murder the "ultimate freedom, ultimate joy . . . ultimate service." His "tribe" is a group of drug-fueled young psychopaths honing their skills under the tutelage of a master. Helter Skelter. And then some. Bob Hightower, the girl's father, is a cop, suddenly more desperate than he ever imagined possible. There are no clues to his daughter's whereabouts, only a scene of unfathomable carnage--th

From the Back Cover

"Boston Teran writes like an angel, shining a clear light on the deeds of the devil in this hunt-and-chase thriller. God is a Bullet is a stunner of a suspense novel, body-slamming its way down an uncharted rocky terrain of pain, fear, horror, bravery, and redemption . . . Teran's voice is fresh, unique, and explosive. He has delivered a work that is too good, too important, and too painful to be ignored."--Lorenzo Carcaterra, author of Sleepers and Apaches"God is a Bullet defies description. Nothing I have ever read, NOTHING, has filled me with the exciting sense of dread and fear I felt while reading this extraordinary first novel. Everything about this book is perfect: the story is astounding, the characters are etched in my brain, the real-time style is riveting, and Teran's dialogue is carved out of granite. It will be a long while before I get this story and these characters out of my head. It is just a terrific experience."--William Diehl, author of Reign in Hell and Primal Fear"In a word: God is a Bullet is a shotgun blast to the gut--a kick-ass, in-your-face tour de force from start to finish. Every page carries a fresh wallop and a nightmarish jolt. Boston Teran's haunting words stay with you long after you turn the final page. I'm still stunned."--Harlan Coben, author of Fade Away and One False Move"God is a Bullet is an intense, emotional reading experience, an unrelenting thriller populated with full-bodied, deeply drawn characters. Boston Teran locates the heart beneath the darkness and delivers something human and true."--George P. Pelecanos, author of King Suckerman and The Sweet Forever

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

A small wooden windmill sits on top a mailbox near the entrance to a dirt driveway that crooks its way up a hill and onto a flat prow of stony ground and ends at a fifties-style ranch house. As the windmill's warped vanes creak, five figures emerge from the brush like a coven conjured out of the black earth.They are a patchquilt of jeans and leathers. Bare-soled boots and chain-braided vests over scrubby T-shirts. One, a boy named Gutter, has a safety pin awled through his lower lip. Another, a girl named Lena, has her hair greased back and dyed up like a rainbow. Their faces and arms are tattooed with anarchistic designs. They have pistols and knives wedged into their belts and boots. As they fan into the darkness they are a vision of post-apocalyptic rock-and-roll revenants.Cyrus stops them about fifty yards shy of the house and looks the grounds over. The bushes by the front door are tasseled with holiday lights and dance to the wind like illuminated ghosts. He looks back down at the road. Via Princessa cuts a silent, pitch-dark path around the hills toward the freeway. He listens and waits, his senses taking everything in quarter by quarter. The only sound is the windmill's rusted spoke arcing round its unvarying center. He gives orders silently, using a spartan wave of the blue barrel of his shotgun.He sends Granny Boy and Wood across the driveway to follow a ravine that backs up and around the house toward the shed and corral where the girl keeps her horse. Lena is sent along a row of cypress trees to the near side of the house, which faces the Antelope Freeway. She is to check out a set of glass patio doors that lead from the den to the pool. Gutter is left behind in case some car comes along Via Princessa and turns up into the driveway. He's only to make for the house when Cyrus lets him know it's dyin' time.       Gabi sits alone on the windowseat listening to her CD player and watching the headlights of the cars on the freeway flare by. She takes a kind of mindless pleasure imagining the lives tucked away behind those flooding headlights that fill out the dark and then dissolve on toward Canyon Country. At fourteen she is flush with the idea the whole world has a date with something interesting--except her. She is all will and dreams trapped inside a child's body.The door to her bedroom is cracked open just enough so she canhear the vague intonations of an argument between her mother and stepfather.She gets up and crosses the room and slips out into the hallway. She peeks around the corner and sees the kitchen squared up within and beyond the dark frame of the den. Her mother steps into view. She is rubbing her right hand with her left, then the left with her right. It is a gesture of her mother's Gabi knows all too well, and it means she is about ready to cry or lunge into an angry outburst. Occasionally she does both at the same time.The den carries their words through to the hall like some huge woofer."Talk to me, Sam.""About what?""Oh, Sam . . .""There's nothing."Her stepfather's tone has that uncommunicative edge she's heard in a lot of their conversations lately.Her mother passes out of view, and now the room is just a backdrop of white kitchen cabinets hung in space."Sam, don't you know when you talk like that you give yourself away.""Sarah, I mean it. There's . . .""Don't do this," she says angrily. "I won't stand for a shut door to your emotions. I left Bob because of that."To hear her father's name spoken that way, used as some sort of negative example, makes Gabi feel sick and angry. And lonely. That's the worst of it. To feel like you're the sum total of someone else's separation.It hurts her to listen, so she goes back to her room and sullenly closes the door on them. Her dog has already found the warm spot on the windowseat where she had been and is making himself comfortable. She slumps down next to him and curls her feet under his belly."Make with some room, Poncho."He's part cocker and part question mark: the floppy ears and pooly eyes of one, and the scruff-box short hair and gangly long legs of the other. He had been her father's birthday present to her and a way of keeping them close.She glances out the window to find herself there in the night, staring back miserably. The long slender face, the skin a burnished summer yellow pooling around deeply set eyes. The details of her features swim a bit in the glass, but their import is unmistakable. Each day she is evolving more and more into the image of her mother. And at this moment, as much as she loves her mother, she hates her for having such a profound effect on her very being.She looks back across the room at the clock by her bed. It's closing in on 10:30.She and her father have this little ritual every Tuesday and Thursday night when he's working the late shift. At 10:30, as he cruises past on the freeway, he slows down and throws on the overhead flashers of his sheriff's patrol car, and she responds by flipping her bedroom light on and off. It's their secret way of saying good night.       Through the tangled cross of manzanita trees at the edge of the slope, Cyrus watches the nigger sheep and his porcelain wife arguing in the kitchen. If they only knew the book of life was about to close on them.Lena makes her way back from the house along the lip of the ridge, using the high grass as cover against the moonlight. She slips up behind Cyrus and leans against him.The years of pills and junk have left her with a face that seems to hover between life and death. She points a hand toward the house. On the back of each finger is tattooed the date of a death she has had a hand in.She whispers, "Besides the front and patio doors, there's one more. And that goes to the service entrance behind the kitchen, there, on the far wall. I couldn't find signs of no security system.""Just the nigger and his brood in there?"She nods. "I crawled right up to the house and that's all I saw. They got a dog though, but you could finish it with just a good set of teeth.""Give me the hypodermic."She takes a black needle case from her back pocket and hands it to Cyrus. He opens it. One needle, two vials of clear liquid. More than enough to play. He closes the case and slips it into the pocket of his frayed deerskin coat."Alright. Let's go wish the sheep a Merry Christmas."        "Why are you so sexually unresponsive to me?"Sam leans back against the stove, short an answer. Sarah turns and grabs a photo from a nest of snapshots held to the refrigerator door by a miniature magnetic blender. She crosses the room and holds the photo up so Sam can see it."Is this all we are now?"He looks at the snapshot Gabi took of Maureen and John at the last family barbecue. A perfect mismatch of people sitting side by side at a picnic table. Maureen a little too drunk to care about the disrespect her husband, John Lee, shows her. Sam says nothing, but he can't believe that of all the photos she grabbed that particular one. It's almost as if she were psychic."I don't know what you mean, Sarah.""I mean, are we like them? Has our marriage boiled down to that? Just a hideous fraud. Something we make up along the way to get what we want until we want something else. And if we don't get that or don't want it anymore, well . . . we just cast it aside and keep what we have until . . . the next little thing comes along. Are we down to trade and barter?"He can feel a guilty headache coming on. "I don't know what you're fuckin' talking about," he says.Sarah swings the kitchen door shut. "Don't use that kind of language with me. Not in this house."He throws up his hands."Do you know what commitment is?""Jesus, Sarah . . .""It's not just an idea, or a part-time gig. It's a way of life." She throws the photo down on the kitchen table and gives him a hard look across folded arms. "Are you having an affair?"She watches him carefully. His huff across to the refrigerator, passing within inches of her. The tug at the refrigerator door, the taking of a beer, the twisting off of the cap. All done with an uncomfortable boredom.He goes to sit at the kitchen table when, outside, Gabi's horse starts to stalk the corral, whinnying. A high, shrill call.        Gabi sits watching the freeway when something forms a withery outline just past the lamplit tiles of the pool. She leans up against the glass, cupping her hands around her eyes to see better. The bush grass wrestles and bends. Maybe it's a coyote or a wild dog. Maybe even a deer. Sometimes deer make their way down from the hills of the Angeles National Forest, which backs up their property. What a hoot. Christmas week and a deer comes to visit. But then something steel-like and shiny seeps through a row of trees. It glistens once. Twice. Like a broken fragment of a star. And then it's gone.She begins to feel a little anxious. It wouldn't be the first time someone wandered up the hill.She goes out into the hall. The kitchen door is closed but she can hear her mother and stepfather still in the throes of it.Poncho follows her toward the living room.It is dark except for the twinkling lights of the Christmas tree, which cast starburst shadows onto the ceiling. She stands in the middle of the room looking from window to window. She is wearing a T-shirt and shorts and feels unusually cold. She glances at the patio doors. They are slightly open. Only inches, but enough to let the night air i...

About the Author

Boston Teran was born and raised in the South Bronx. He lives in California.

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