The Emperor of Ocean Park

What a lovely book - sent to me by my Aussie pal, this is a family saga and a mystery combined together. Also, it is an insightful look into the tone of the lives of middle-class African Americans, a topic I seldom run across in popular fiction. But Stephen L. Carter has written an intriguing book.

Talcott Garland, the younger son of conservative judge Oliver Garland, has felt strain between himself and all of his surviving family members (brother Addison, sister Mariah) since the Judge went before the Senate as a nominee to the Supreme Court - and was humiliated publicly, and ultimately forced to withdraw his name. The humiliation centered around the Judge's friendship with a man suspected of having mob connections, who makes his living (everyone believes) by murder.

The book opens as the Judge has died under circumstances that Mariah feels are suspicious. Involved in this are the many questions Tal has always had - including questions about his youngest sister Abby's death in a hit-and-run accident many years past and why the Judge didn't disavow his mobster friend who also happened to be Abby's godfather.

Additionally, Tal has other concerns. His wife, Kimmer, is under consideration for an appointment to the federal court of appeals. Of course, he also suspects she is having an affair, but that should not surprise him since she had an affair with him when married to her first husband.

A very interesting book with a good twist at the end.