Whitney Terrell (born October 3, 1967) is an American writer and educator from Kansas City, Missouri.

The novel centers on a young African American who elbows his way into Kansas City's white, upper-class society while searching for answers about his family's past.

This book elaborated on the relationship between real estate and race in Kansas City, tracing the life of an ambitious developer who uses racial covenants to build a segregated suburban empire.

[6] In 2006, Terrell was named to a list of best writers under 40 by a panel of National Book Critics Circle Award members.

[12] Terrell's third book, The Good Lieutenant: A Novel, was published in June 2016 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

The novel is told in reverse order, following Lieutenant Emma Fowler as she leads a platoon of male soldiers through tragedy and suspicious circumstances during America's war in Iraq.