In
New England White, author Stephen Carter brings back the character of Lemaster Carlyle he first introduced in
The Emperor of Ocean Park. He's now the president of a prestigious New England university, and his wife, Julia, is a dean of the Divinity School. They're African-Americans who have reached the pinnacle of their success, with ties all the way to the White House. One day they stumble across the corpse of Julia's ex-lover, Kellen Zant. Zant had many enemies, but Julia knows he was working to solve an old murder case where a black boy had been convicted of killing a white girl. Julia pursues clues in both murders, while they both deal with family and career issues. Stephen Carter's exploration of the lives and human foibles of the elite black community has received mostly positive reviews with the Seattle Times saying, "The prospect of its deliberate pace and twisty plot (filling nearly 600 pages) may scare off some fiction seekers, but it's also true that these same qualities make
New England White a satisfying immersion experience. The reader, once hooked, stays in a luxuriously absorbed state until the last page."
