Black and Blue-Blooded

Writing about rich white people is no way to make it as a novelist anymore. You're just one Fitzgerald among many. Rich black people, though --now there's a subject you can build a brand on. Stephen Carter is a Yale law professor turned novelist whose first book--The Emperor of Ocean Park, a huge best seller--confirmed what many had long suspected: that there are in fact people who are rich and black. His second novel, New England White (Knopf; 558 pages), expands on those initial findings.

Carter writes lengthy mysteries in the manner of Scott Turow, though New England White often feels...