Palace Council
Written by Stephen L. Carter
Narrated by Dominic Hoffman
3.5/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this audiobook
John Grisham called Stephen L. Carter's first novel, The Emperor of Ocean Park, "beautifully written and cleverly plotted. A rich, complex family saga, one deftly woven through a fine legal thriller." The Chicago Tribune hailed Carter's next book, New England White, as "a whodunit with conscience." Now this bestselling novelist returns with an electrifying political thriller set in the turbulent era of Watergate and Vietnam, giving us one of the most riveting and naked portraits of Nixon ever written.
In the summer of 1952, twenty prominent men gather at a secret meeting on Martha's Vineyard and devise a plot to manipulate the President of the United States. Soon after, the body of one of these men is found by Eddie Wesley, Harlem's rising literary star. When Eddie's younger sister mysteriously disappears, Eddie and the woman he loves, Aurelia Treene, are pulled into what becomes a twenty-year search for the truth. As Eddie and Aurelia uncover layer upon layer of intrigue, their odyssey takes them from the wealthy drawing rooms of New York through the shady corners of radical politics, all the way to the Oval Office.
Stephen Carter's novel is as complex as it is suspenseful, and with his unique ability to turn stereotypes inside out, Palace Council is certain to enthrall listeners to the very last moment.
Stephen L. Carter
Stephen L. Carter is the bestselling author of several novels—including The Emperor of Ocean Park and New England White—and over half a dozen works of non-fiction. Formerly a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, he is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law at Yale University, where he has taught for more than thirty years. He and his wife live in Connecticut.
Related to Palace Council
Related audiobooks
Mr. Wilson's War: From the Assassination of McKinley to the Defeat of the League of Nations Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5American Presidents: A Captivating Guide to Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren – The Two Founders of the Democratic Party Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAmerican Heritage History of the Presidents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jackson Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Phantom Killer: Unlocking the Mystery of the Texarkana Serial Murders: the Story of a Town in Terror Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The First Conspiracy (Young Reader's Edition): The Secret Plot to Kill George Washington Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Statesman and the Storyteller: John Hay, Mark Twain, and the Rise of American Imperialism Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Andrew Jackson: A Captivating Guide to the Man Who Served as the Seventh President of the United States Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Gilded Age, a Tale of Today (Unabridged) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAmerican Heroes: Profiles of Men and Women Who Shaped Early America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gilded Age Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Midnight Assassin: Panic, Scandal, and the Hunt for America's First Serial Killer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan, Vol. 1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWar of Two: Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, and the Duel that Stunned the Nation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Empire of Shadows: The Epic Story of Yellowstone Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America 1789-1989 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Ulysses S. Grant: The American Presidents Series: The 18th President, 1869-1877 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The First Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill George Washington Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I've Got a Home in Glory Land: A Lost Tale of the Underground Railroad Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5American Republics: A Continental History of the United States 1783-1850 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Making of the President 1960 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ambush at Central Park: When the IRA Came to New York Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Fall of the House of Dixie: The Civil War and the Social Revolution That Transformed the South Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Good Assassin: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Brothers in Arms: The Kennedys, the Castros, and the Politics of Murder Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Best of American Heritage: The Civil War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMidnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Breaking the Chains: African American Slave Resistance Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPolk: The Man Who Transformed the Presidency and America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Clansman, An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Mystery For You
Listen for the Lie: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Murder on the Orient Express: A Hercule Poirot Mystery: The Official Authorized Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Murder Your Employer: The McMasters Guide to Homicide Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Word is Murder: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hit and Run Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Good Girl's Guide to Murder: A Debutante Dropout Mystery Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Crooked House Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Finlay Donovan Is Killing It: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5And Then There Were None Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fifth Suspect Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Sherlock Holmes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of Extraordinary Impossible Crimes and Puzzling Deaths: The Best New Original Stories of the Genre Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tell No One Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mother-Daughter Murder Night: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 7 ½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5When No One Is Watching: A Thriller Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Did I Kill You?: A Thriller Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ordinary Grace Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Murder of Roger Ackroyd: A Hercule Poirot Mystery: The Official Authorized Edition Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Bad Housekeeping Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Unexpected Guest Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5What Lies in the Woods: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The River We Remember: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hallowe'en Party: A Hercule Poirot Mystery: The Official Authorized Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Death on the Nile: A Hercule Poirot Mystery: The Official Authorized Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Still Life: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Botanist's Guide to Parties and Poisons Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Perfume: The Story of a Murderer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Altered Carbon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Palace Council
144 ratings11 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I had been waiting to read this book for a number of years now. It's my first audio book. I liked most of the story. I was definitely unhappy with the ending and disappointed. I would have liked to have seen more closure to some of the characters. Otherwise, great writing.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Antoher of Carter's literate, erudite, elegant, but occasionally pompous novels of upper-crust African American life, nicely teamed with a Grisham-like suspense plot. Julia becomes inadvertantly involved with the murder of a former lover and the long-ago death of a young girl. The book drags a bit for the first third, but then the plot complications pick up and if flies along. A fine book somewhat spoiled by an ending that seems to be completely from left field.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5600 pages for a murder mystery is too much. Even name of the rose was 500 pages and that had so many other major elements to develop. So I got up to page 147 and then skipped to the end. Too much on While there were ivery interesting details about the life and mores of upper eschelon black Americans, I was left yawning with Julias constant vacillations and internal conflicts. About 300 pages less and trhis would have been en point.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5When Professor Kellen Zant is found murdered, a decades old mystery is resurrected. It involves the President of a university and his family who were socially related. Very good depiction by a black author of a successful black family in a upper class white community . Not a quick read, but hard to put down.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5First off, this is a very large book. I wasn't sure I'll be able to get through it but I did. This book is a murder mystery surrounding an African-American president of a university, his wife, her dead ex-lover and a crime that happened over 30 years ago and how they are connected to it. It was a difficult read at first. Many characters and situations to remember but once I understood what was going on within the story, I swept through it. I wanted to know how it was going to end. The ending was a bit of a letdown, however. It was not what I was expecting at all. I wanted something more. I know that the author is a law professor at an Ivy League school so the book was a bit wordy to say the least. I get it. The guy is smart, probably smarter than the rest of us. Maybe I should have started with his first book then I would have been prepared for his writing style.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Antoher of Carter's literate, erudite, elegant, but occasionally pompous novels of upper-crust African American life, nicely teamed with a Grisham-like suspense plot. Julia becomes inadvertantly involved with the murder of a former lover and the long-ago death of a young girl. The book drags a bit for the first third, but then the plot complications pick up and if flies along. A fine book somewhat spoiled by an ending that seems to be completely from left field.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An odd mix of compelling and cold. A month on and I can barely remember the resolution to the central mystery, but certain scenes and turns of phrase jump up to be recalled.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Conspiracies make for great fiction and that’s what at the heart of this mystery. Someone is covering up a 30-year-old murder, but it’s a fresh murder that spurs Julia into action. Like the hero of The Emperor of Ocean Park, Julia is a reluctant sleuth. She is drawn ever deeper into the mystery by clues only she can interpret and string together for a conclusion. The people she trusts are few; not even her own husband.Julia’s ex-boyfriend Kellen Zant is the latest victim; murdered to keep him from revealing the previous killer. Is it the President of the US or just a Senator from a New England state? Maybe it’s Lemaster himself since he was roommate to both men in college. Along the way she meets suspicious townies, gossipy Sister Ladies, vicious dogs, corrupt lawyers and closed ranks of the rich and powerful.Once again, there is an element of race, but no axe grinding away and no preaching. Again, these black folks are living in a most white area of the country; New England. They are accepted, but is it only because of guilt? Oh that lovely white guilt. But again, the racism cuts both ways and we have again the attitude of divisiveness for the sake of divisiveness on the part of many of the black characters in this novel. Racial harmony will not come easily until both sides are willing to cut the crap. Full of interesting characters, this was a much more tightly plotted novel than the previous one. Julia’s motivations were shown and not tied up in a bunch of internal monologues and angst and I understood her more for it. It was much less an internal novel and much more external and once things started moving, they didn’t let up. An nice long story arc with a satisfying ending.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Brilliantly plotted and written. Very enjoyable. Moving
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Stephen Carter explores the world of the Carlyles, an upper-middle class African-American family, and their place in an Ivy-League type setting. This is a familiar theme to Carter who wrote about a similar dynamic in his previous novel The Emperor of Ocean Park. The Carlyle family is entangled with a decades-old mystery that is somehow related to the recent murder of a university colleague. In the discovery process, the reader is introduced to a social networking system amongst wealthy African-Americans that appears to be secretive to most of the country's general population.Although Carter attempts to try to enlighten the reader with many examples that differentiate this group from others, the reality is that it appears minutely different from any other privileged class that functions in the Ivy-League world. In this regard, the novel rehashes familiar themes of privilege, abuse of power, and the fall-out from a have and have-not dichotomous society. The framework that Carter creates for the murder-mystery is presented as a tightly interwoven series of puzzles that must be solved by a teamwork of people, particularly Julia Carlyle. Initially, the riddles are complex and reveal key plot elements. As the story unfolds, they are larger gaps between the clues and how the connections are drawn amongst the details of the dual murders. As the reader nears the conclusion of the novel, the pace picks up so quickly that it doesn't reflect the attention to detail that is present at the beginning. This book is an enjoyable read as a suspense novel but it is not the social commentary that it has been touted as being.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Set in the university town of of New Englands's Elm Harbor where a murder threatens to reveal the racial complications of the town's past, the secreats of a prominent family, and the most hidden bastions of African-American political influence. The story of Lemaster and Julia Carlyle-he the university president and she his wife.