New England White by Stephen Carter

The murder of Professor Kellen Zant, an African American, sets off the plot for this story set in a prestigious New England university. The deceased was a former lover of the university president’s wife, Julia Carlyle. The mystery of this murder becomes even more important to Julia and her husband because it becomes apparent that it is connected to the suspicious drowning death 30 years earlier of Gina Joule, a local white girl. The Joule case has become an obsession for the Carlyles’ emotionally disturbed daughter. Vanessa. The author is an attorney and the book is long and detailed in weaving complicated webs of intrigue before arriving at the solution to the duel mysteries. Many in our mystery book group did not finish reading the book because it was too ponderous to follow and had too many different groups of characters and sub-plots. Published reviews have been flattering, but in reality it is a long book with a complex set of plots and political manipulations that really doesn’t go very far from where it begins.