The Emperor of Ocean Park

This sophisticated thriller takes place amid the African-American aristocracy of Martha's Vineyard, and Washington D.C. Ivy league law professor Talcott Garland is the son of a judge whose Supreme Court nomination hearings led to scandal and disgrace. At his death the Judge leaves Tal a dangerous mystery to solve. Carter knows his territory and plots cleverly, with compulsively readable results. Richard Allen gives an adequate performance, though he doesn't have nearly the range this cast requires. When a tough-minded white law professor starts sounding like Flip Wilson in drag, one suspects the author's intentions are not being fully served. Fortunately, the book's strengths outweigh this weakness. B.G. (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine

Starred review from April 22, 2002
Carter, a Yale law professor and distinguished conservative African-American intellectual known for his nonfiction (The Culture of Disbelief), has written a first-rate legal thriller guaranteed to broaden his audience. The narrator, Talcott Garland, is a law professor at Elm Harbor University whose occasional Carteresque editorializing about politics and justice are saved from didacticism by his abiding existential loneliness. The mystery at the heart of the novel stems from Tal's father's disgrace: Judge Oliver Garland (a Robert Bork meets Clarence Thomas type) was nominated by Ronald Reagan for a Supreme Court seat, but brought down in the Senate hearings when it was revealed that he had a friendship with Jack Ziegler, a wild-card former CIA agent now rumored to be an organized crime kingpin. When the judge dies of what looks like a heart attack and Ziegler turns up at his funeral, Tal is initiated into a quest to uncover mysterious "arrangements" his father made in the event of his untimely demise. Various shady entities observe Tal chasing down the judge's clues, which include a cryptic note ("you have little time.... Excelsior! It begins!") and derive from chess strategy. Meanwhile, Talcott is going through a rough patch: his wife, Kimmer, a high-powered attorney, is probably cheating on him, his Elm Harbor law school colleagues are suspicious of him and a fake FBI man is following him around. As Talcott digs deeper, he uncovers a vein of corruption that runs all the way to the top, and his own life becomes threatened. This thriller, which touches electrically on our sexual, racial and religious anxieties, will be the talk of the political in-crowd this summer. (June)Forecast:A dual main selection of BOMC, a main selection of QPB and an alternate selection of the Literary Guild, Mystery Guild and Black Expressions, this title should bring Carter the wide recognition he deserves as a novelist.

This is two, two, two books in one. One book--and it's a wonder--delineates the family of Talcott Garland, law professor and son of Oliver Garland, a black Supreme Court nominee who owns a summer house in Ocean Park on Martha's Vineyard. The other, and it's not as expertly drawn, is a legal thriller surrounding the judge's life and death. The shoot-out in a graveyard isn't nearly as fresh or exciting as the knowing presentation of empowered black men and women, rich for generations and conservative. Peter Francis James has a deep, melodious voice, perfect for Talcott, but he doesn't change it to give life to other characters. B.H.C. 2003 Audie Award Finalist (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine