Palace Council

Starred review from May 19, 2008
Spanning the years from 1954 to 1974, bestseller Carter's third novel, a subtle and intelligent page-turner, centers on the murder of a prominent white Wall Street attorney, Philmont Castle. After literally stumbling on Castle's garroted corpse in a Harlem park, Eddie Wesley, a young and ambitious African-American writer, is afraid to identify himself to the police. An inverted cross bearing a cryptic inscription clutched in the victim's hand intrigues Wesley enough for him to pursue a trail that leads to a shadowy group of conspirators known as the Palace Council. Aided by his on-again, off-again love interest, Aurelia Treene, Wesley also searches for his beloved sister, Junie, whose disappearance may be connected to Castle's death. Though aspects of the plot require more suspension of disbelief than in Carter's previous novels (New England White
; The Emperor of Ocean Park
), the rich characterization and elegant writing more than compensate. 6-city author tour.

May 15, 2008
A Wall Street lawyer is recruited into a mysterious conspiracy. Two and a half years later, a young writer stumbles over the lawyer's corpse in Harlem; an unexplained suicide follows. The writer's sister vanishes. The writer sets out to connect these seemingly unconnected events; his quest takes him through the tumultuous 1950s and 1960s. In his previous novels ("New England White; The Emperor of Ocean Park"), Yale law professor Carter has delighted in bending genres. His latest is no exception, at once a hyperbolic thriller and a subtle and convincing comedy of manners. Lives intersect across 20 years in ways both obvious and hidden: Richard Nixon appears as a strangely sympathetic figure, and poet Langston Hughes, Joe and Jack Kennedy, Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, and J. Edgar Hoover take bows. Few authors are better than Carter at capturing the nuances of human behavior on both sides of the color line. His take on race relations isn't bleak, but Carter is no Pollyanna: there's still a long way to go by the end of this book. "Council" will grip readers, but it will also make them think. Enthusiastically recommended for all general collections. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 3/1/08.]David Keymer, Modesto, CA

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from April 15, 2008
Eddie Wesleys determination to be a writer sets him at odds with his staid preacher father, his beloved Aurelia, and the high society of the darker nation of Harlem. In May 1954, Eddie disappoints all of them and will spend the next 30 years trying to learn more about a secret society bent on shaking the throne of American power. Drunk and tossed out of Aurelias wedding reception, Eddie stumbles upon the dead body of Philmont Castle, a Wall Street titan. Slowly and reluctantly, Eddie discovers that Castle was part of a secret society that includes members of Aurelias new in-laws and Larry Frost, who looks destined to be the president of the U.S. When Eddies brilliant sister, Junie, disappears and is suspected of leading a radical group called Jewel Agony, Eddie is pulled deeper into the dangerous world of revolutionaries and government agents. To find Junie and determine if there is any link between Jewel Agony and the secret society, Eddie chases clues along the east coast of the U.S. and through Europe and Asia. In the authors notes, Carter admits to fudging the timeline in order to incorporated both Harlems storied salon society and the turbulent 1960s into the same story. The ploy works, letting Carter explore evolving perspectives on race, violence, and national ideals through a cast of fascinating characters, drawn from both real life (J. Edgar Hoover and Richard Nixon) and from the authors earlier novels. A winner for fans of both historical and crime fiction.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)

October 27, 2008
Dominic Hoffman’s voice possesses a touch of sandpaper that causes every word to be rubbed raw before emerging from between his lips. The hardboiled sensation is appropriate for law professor and novelist Carter’s suspenseful story of secret societies, political intrigue, and the social swirl of Harlem’s 1950s elite. Eddie Wesley, a writer and member of African-American high society, finds himself thrust into a shadowy world of murder and espionage, forced to use his authorial skills to uncover the truth. Hoffman’s occasional forays into doing voices, like those of Vietnamese police officers, are unfortunate, but the grain of his voice is alluring enough that listeners will want him to just keep going. A Knopf hardcover (Reviews, May 19).