"Emperor of Ocea Park" is lots of fun

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	• The Emperor of Ocean Park Stephen L. Carter Knopf, 2002 - 672 pages average customer review:based on 379 reviews view larger image
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A Good Long Read

A mostly excellent little romp through the trials and tribulations of an upper-middle-class black family after the patriarch Judge keels over and dies, leaving a bit of a mystery behind for one of his sons to figure out. Carter has a great way with language, but could use an editor to cut back on some of his longer-winded meanderings.

Second Time Around

I read this book several years ago and absoluately hated it, mainly for reasons other reviewers have listed. The more I read, the more I was unable to like, connect with or care about the main character. A few weeks ago when I was complaining about havning nothing to read, a friend suggested that I read it again, this time with the mindset that I did not have to like the main character. So I did, and I found myself enjoying this book a whole heck of a lot more - it was much easier to read about an egocentric dislikeable character whose life is falling apart around him. Yes it's too long, yes the editing should have been better, yes sometimes it crawls, but once you realize that you don't have to LIKE Talcott Garland, it is a much easier and enjoyable read.

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One of my Favorite all time books

Stephen carter is now one of my favorite authors. His style of writing connects with completely. I was glued to the Emperor of Ocean Park and I highly recommend it for anyone looking for a good thriller to read.

"Emperor of Ocea Park" is lots of fun

I read The Emperor of Ocean Park by Stephen L. Carter a few years ago in hardback and in eager anticipation of his second book, New England White, I re-read it in paperback over the summer. I would preface my review by saying that I am an avid fan of the mystery genre (I'm currently working my way through Ian Rankin's brilliant Inspector Rebus series) as well as a former international chess player and avid Supreme Court watcher. These interests are clearly shared by Carter, who when he is not writing mystery novels is Professor of Law at Yale Law School, which is probably the best law school in the country.

Interestingly, the main character in The Emperor of Ocean Park happens to teach at a prominent law school on the Eastern Seaboard. The character's name is Talcott Garland, whose father Judge Oliver Garland was an unsuccessful conservative nominee to the United Supreme Court and whose wife is in the running for a judgeship on the United States Court of Appeals.

When his father dies unexpectedly, Talcott risks his marriage, his career and possibly his own life in order to uncover the secrets unearthed by his father's untimely death.

The book is an engrossing but somewhat phlegmatic read, due to its length (over 650 pages) and subject matter. I look forward to reading Carter's New England White, and I hope that he doesn't take another five years to write his next mystery novel.

GRADE: B+.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

An extraordinary fiction debut: a large, stirring novel of suspense that is, at the same time, a work of brilliantly astute social observation. The Emperor of Ocean Park is set in two privileged worlds: the upper crust African American society of the eastern seaboard?old families who summer on Martha?s Vineyard?and the inner circle of an Ivy League law school. It tells the story of a complex family with a single, seductive link to the shadowlands of crime.

The Emperor of the title, Judge Oliver Garland, has just died, suddenly. A brilliant legal mind, conservative and famously controversial, Judge Garland made more enemies than friends. Many years before, he?d earned a judge?s highest prize: a Supreme Court nomination. But in a scene of bitter humiliation, televised across the country, his nomination collapsed in scandal. The humbling defeat became a private agony, one from which he never recovered.

But now the Judge?s death raises even more questions?and it seems to be leading to a second, even more terrible scandal. Could Oliver Garland have been murdered? He has left a strange message for his son Talcott, a professor of law at a great university, entrusting him with ?the arrangements??a mysterious puzzle that only Tal can unlock, and only by unearthing the ambiguities of his father?s past. When another man is found dead, and then another, Talcott?wry, straight-arrow, almost too self-aware to be a man of action?must risk his career, his marriage, and even his life, following the clues his father left him.

Intricate, superbly written, often scathingly funny, The Emperor of Ocean Park is a triumphant work of fiction, packed with character and incident?a brilliantly crafted tapestry of ambition, family secrets, murder, integrity tested, and justice gone terribly wrong.

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