CLAIR'S FAVORITE

Knopf, $26.95 (signed first edition)

It has been ages since I felt so completely swept into a fictional world. NEW ENGLAND WHITE begins with the death of an African-American economics professor who has very close ties to the president of a prestigious New England university, and especially to his wife. The president's wife, Julia Carlyle, feels compelled to seek the truth behind this death, which may be rooted in a long-past killing that obsesses her own daughter.