A murder mystery steeped in issues of political and racial power, New England White (Alfred A. Knopf, 2007) is the much-anticipated second novel by William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law Stephen L. Carter ’79. Set in a fictional New England University town named “Elm Harbor,” the book delves into the lives of characters Lemaster Carlyle, a university president, and his wife, Julia Carlyle, herself the dean of the university’s divinity school. The Carlyles (who appeared as minor characters in Carter’s bestselling Emperor of Ocean Park) are among the African-American bourgeoisie living in “the heart of whiteness.” The novel’s central plot begins when the couple discovers the body of Kellen Zant, an African-American professor at the university who happens to be a former lover of Julia’s, and she becomes immersed in the hunt for the killer.