Carter, Stephen L.

After the funeral of his powerful father, Talcott Garland, an African American law professor at an Ivy League university, is left to unravel the meaning of a cryptic note and carry out the arrangements his father left behind.

The marriage of Lemaster Carlyle, president of a small, prestigious New England university, and his wife Julia, dean of the university's divinity school, is put to the test when they discover the murdered body of economics professor Kellen Zant, Julia's former lover, and she refuses to accept the ruling that he was a victim of a random robbery.

Analyzes what the author believes to be a serious decline of civility in America, discussing what has happened to good manners, why it matters, and what can be done to change things.