Talcott Garland—African-American, solidly middle class, and sporting an Ivy League education—is a law professor. His father, a somewhat disgraced former nominee to the Supreme Court, has died. A few things about his father’s death don’t add up, and it seems the old man has left some cunningly devised clues to help Tal figure it out, but everyone else is content to let him sleep in peace.

The story of Tal unraveling the mystery is certainly enough to drive the narrative, but that’s not the key thing here. Stephen Carter fits his protagonist’s general biographical profile and is able to provide a compelling view into life on an elite law school faculty and life in the upper middle-class African-American community. The pressures Tal feels in both those lives seem to come alive in Carter’s telling. This is an America that feels “in but not of” the United States. What a great achievement to unwrap it in a story that has momentum of its own.