The Whites

by Harry Brandt

Every cop has a personal 'White': a criminal who got away with murder – or worse – and was able to slip back into life, leaving the victim's family still seeking justice, the cop plagued
by guilt.

Back in the 1990s, Billy Graves was one of the Wild Geese: a tight-knit crew of young mavericks, fresh to police work and hungry for justice, looking out for each other and their 'family' of neighbourhood locals. But then Billy made some bad headlines by accidentally shooting a ten-year-old boy while bringing down an angel-dusted berserker in the street. Branded a loose cannon, he spent years in one dead-end posting after another. Now he has settled into his role as sergeant in the Night Watch, content simply to do his job and go home to his family. But when he is called to the 4 a.m. stabbing of a man in Penn Station, Billy discovers the victim is the 'White' of one of his his oldest friends, a former member of the Wild Geese, who is now retired. As the past comes crashing into the present, the Wild Geese seemingly rise from the dead, and the bad old run-and-gun days of the 90s are back with a vengeance.
Richard Price, writing for the first time under the pen-name of Harry Brandt, is one of America's most gifted novelists. He has always written brilliantly about New York City, and this electrifying novel – fast-moving and stripped to the bone – marks a heart-stopping new departure.

Genres: Fiction, Mystery, Crime, Thriller, Audiobook, New York, Mystery Thriller

353 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 12, 2015

About the author

Harry Brandt is the pen name of acclaimed novelist Richard Price, whose eight previous novels—including Clockers and Lush Life—have won universal praise for their vividly etched portrayals of urban America. He lives in Manhattan with his wife, the novelist Lorraine Adams.

Reviews

[Orsodimondo · Rating 4 out of 5]

DETECTIVE ACHAB



Immagino che il detto popolare “la vendetta è un piatto che va servito freddo” sia stato tirato fuori proprio per quanto, invece, lo si faccia a caldo. Talmente a caldo, che spesso si brucia anche il vendicatore.
Il gruppo di poliziotti denominati Wild Geese, o meglio, ex poliziotti perché sono tutti andati in pensione anticipata, in servizio ne è rimasto solo uno, Billy Graves, il protagonista, inseguono la loro balena bianca: ognuno ha la sua, un caso che non è riuscito a risolvere, un criminale che non è riuscito a consegnare alla ‘giustizia’, che è riuscito a evitare la sua punizione.
E come il capitano Achab, inseguono la loro vendetta.



Ma non sono gli unici.
E quest’altra “balena bianca” che viene fuori dopo il primo terzo del libro, centotrenta pagine nevrotiche, adrenaliche come la macchina da presa di Scorsese e lo stesso Di Caprio all’inizio di The Wolf of Wall Street, direi che è la vera balena bianca, la vendetta che cova e conta di più, quella che funge da perno centrale al romanzo.


Elliott Erwitt: Pausa sigaretta. 1955. Erwitt è l’autore della fotografia sulla copertina.

Non era un artista della vendetta, o un feroce calcolatore, ma un povero infelice, sempre più violento e incapace di qualunque autocontrollo. Le mani gli tremavano costantemente a furia di bere, aveva il cervello in pappa, ottenebrato da una rabbia cieca, e ogni giorno faceva più fatica ad alzarsi dal letto per la stanchezza.
Ecco com’è descritto uno di questi cacciatori di balene bianche: gente che la vita ha consumato, non killer efferati e calcolatori.



È una New York che sembra di periferia anche quando la scena è ambientata in piena Manhattan. Forse perché le persone che la abitano sembrano tutte marginali.
Ma vere, reali (magistrali i dialoghi).
Niente glam, niente Sex and the City, ma neppure giustizieri della notte. E la crime story sembra l’espediente per raccontare una parte d’umanità.
E più che i colpi di scena, Price sembra adottare la sorpresa.
E più che indicare una linea di onestà, parla di gente che non è senza colpa, il confine tra colpevoli e innocenti è labile, slabbrato.
Anche se Price ci ricorda chiaramente che non tutti i colpevoli sono uguali, il rimorso fa la differenza.
Non può essere certo la vendetta a riequilibrare il piatto, la vita appare in assenza di giustizia.

Più che un poliziesco, questo romanzo è un torvo dilemma morale.


John Turturro nella magnifica miniserie del 2016 “The Night Of” creata da Richard Price e Steve Zaillian.

[Paul Bryant · Rating 4 out of 5]

This being Richard Price, whatever it says on the cover – we’ll get to that in a moment – I thought I’d better keep a note of the characters just to try to get them straight in my mind, I knew there’d be a whole phalanx of them, detectives, perps, victims, family members, ex-family members, ex-detectives, witnesses, slingers, dog walkers, sex workers, hopheads – so here’s the list I made

Billy Graves
Joon
Emmett Butter
Gene Feeley
Alice Stupak
Roger Mayo
Rollie Towers Aka The Wheel
Theodore Moretti
Eddie Lopez
Charlene Carter
Horace Woody
Carla Garrett
Jeffrey Bannion
Thomas Rivera
Eugene Bannion
John Pavilcek
Carmen Graves
Declan And Carols Graves
Millie Singh
Jimmy Whelan
Yasmin Assaf-Doyle
Redman Brown
Brian Tomassi
Sweetpea Harris
Eric Cortez
Curtis Taft
Tonya Howard
Memori Williams
Dreena Bailey
Milton Ramos
Ray Rivera
Nora Rivera
Esteban Appleyard
Stephen Cunliffe
Wallice Oliver
Stacey Taylor
Carlos Hernandez
Billy Graves Senior
Victor Acosta
Richard Kubin
Antoine Davis-Bey
Salaam Pridgen
Dennis Doyle
Raymond Del Pino
Shakira Barker
Patricia Taft
Martha Timberwolf
Michael Reidy
Elvis Perez
Stanley Treestes
Edna Worthy

That’s up to around page 80, I stopped the list after that, it was getting exhausting. If you find yourself in this novel, I won’t be surprised. I guess cops really meet a lot of people, they have whole townships of the dead and the living mooching around in their mental lobes. Me, I remember the names of around seven people, and I forget two of those usually. I’m not good with names.

THE MYSTERY OF THE TRANSPARENT PSEUDONYM

What’s with this thing on the cover : “Richard Price writing as Harry Brandt” ? So apparently, the Times, tells us, :

He wanted to inoculate himself against literary critics who might sneer at him for writing a slicker, more commercial book. He was already late on delivering a separate novel … and hoped to hide the fact that he was moonlighting. And he wanted to see if he could write a stripped-down, heavily plotted best seller, without sacrificing his literary credentials.

The article explains that he found it a drag competing against himself. Okay, I dig that, because I have actually read 3 of his last 4, Freedomland, Lush Life and Clockers, and they are all monumental – vast books about one particular case examined in 700 small font page detail. So I get that he may have wished to change gear. But plenty of other writers do that, they have whole different types of books they write, look at Philip Roth or Joyce Carol Oates, doesn’t bother those guys, they chuck it all out with the one name on the cover. The article quotes Mr Price

“It seemed like a good idea in the beginning, and now I wish I hadn’t done it,” he said. “This pen name is like pulling a rabbit out of a glass hat.”


Well, I wish he hadn’t either, it’s silly. Although I maybe should have done the pseudonym thing for some of my own more lunatic reviews. I can see the benefit. Could have avoided a lot of flack. Anyway.

THE WHITES?

Yes, a rather unnecessarily provocative title, since it’s got nowt to do with white people. The cops, apparently, refer to criminals who’ve got away with major crimes due to lack of evidence or the death of witnesses as whites, and that’s what this book is about.

A QUOTE

Castro inhaled again, blew out enough smoke to announce a pope.

HOMICIDE-FLAVOURED ICE CREAM

Any Richard Price fan will already be reading this and will not be disappointed, and any Wire fan (Mr Price wrote a few of those shows) who is not yet a Richard Price fan is advised to scoop up this like a new piquant New York homicide-flavoured ice cream. You get a hectic ride all right, although truth be told this more plot-driven style novel only gets going around page 100, but that's okay. By the end, every loose end is tied up, every dark motive brought to the light, it’s positively Victorian. The body count is high. There’s nothing not to like here.

[James Thane · Rating 5 out of 5]

For whatever reason, the acclaimed novelist Richard Price, author of Clockers and Lush Life, among other books, decided to write this novel as "Harry Brandt." He must have changed his mind in mid-stream, however, because the fiction of the pen name didn't even last until the pub date and, in consequence, both names appear on the cover.

Whatever the case, The Whites is among the absolute best crime novels of the year. The main protagonist is a middle-aged New York City detective named Billy Graves. In his younger days, Billy was a member of a celebrated anti-crime unit that became known as the Wild Geese, and the members of the group were not above bending the law from time to time to administer a rough justice to the scumbags that they encountered.

Most of the other members of the group have now retired and moved on to other jobs. Billy remains on the force as a sergeant in the Manhattan Night Watch, a group of detectives that catches cases overnight and then passes them on to detectives on the day shift. It's not a particularly exciting or fulfilling job, but at this point in his career, it's just what Billy needs.

Billy remains in touch with the other former members of the Wild Geese, and they occasionally get together for a reunion dinner or some such thing. But all of them, Billy included, are troubled individuals, unhappy both in their careers and in their personal lives. Each of them has a case from the past that continues to haunt him or her, usually because a perp who committed a horrible crime got away with it. In each case, the detectives know who did it, but they just never had enough proof to make the case. These cases are know as the "Whites," the name taken from a great white whale that once famously bedeviled a nineteenth-century sea captain.

Billy Graves is absolutely in love with his wife, Carmen, who is a nurse. But Carmen has deep secrets of her own from long ago, and she is as troubled in her own way as Billy is in his. This is one reason why he prefers the night shift, because it minimizes the time they have to spend together. Then in the middle of the night, Billy catches a case in which a man has been stabbed to death in Penn Station. But this is no ordinary slaying because the victim is one of the Whites that has for so many years dogged one of the other members of the Wild Geese. The slaying changes Billy's life and resurrects a lot of trouble that would have been better left buried deep in the past. And from that point on, Billy's life descends into the proverbial hell on earth.

Richard Price is truly a gifted writer who has a great way with language and who uses this story as an opportunity to probe into the hidden corners of the souls of the characters he has created here. They're all vividly drawn and the story sucks you in practically from the opening page. The Whites is a story that works at many different levels and if it's not the best book I read in 20015, then it's very close.

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Years ago, I was blown away by the urban crime epic Clockers and I swore to read everything that author Richard Price had ever written. I got caught up in discovering new authors and (other than reading Samaritan and enjoying it) I've sadly been neglecting his work. I'm kicking myself now because this latest book, The Whites, is wonderful. He wrote it as Harry Brandt, a sort-of-pseudonym that he reportedly used because he wanted to write a more straight-up short cop thriller than Price normally writes. Well, he failed, because this is way more than just a standard thriller. It's not even really a thriller. But what it is is a complex and tragic character piece focusing on an NYPD cop dealing not only with the nightly horrors that he investigates with his Manhattan Night Watch team, but also with the consequences of the past surfacing to threaten his family and friends.

In my opinion, what has always set Price apart as a writer is his impeccable attention to detail when it comes to character. Most of the great crime writers today still can't match his ability to craft such engaging personalities. And in this novel, that ability is fully on display. Literally every character here, both major and minor, stands out, and is meticulously well-drawn and memorable. Also, the family-life of both Billy Graves and Milton Ramos were just as compelling to read about as the police investigations. This is a book about friendship and family, as well as justice and morality and the repercussions that arise in the pursuit of both, the pursuit of your personal "White."

[Trish · Rating 5 out of 5]

Richard Price is something of a wonder. Word on the avenue is that he wrote this under the pseudonym Harry Brandt hoping a popular pot-boiler would bring in some fast cash while he could keep his street cred as a literatteur. It is kind of laughable when you see what he did with the form. His characters have motivations so deep we can cut loose our therapists, the plotting is so intense and detailed I needed a name map, and his language is so fly I learned on the job. Nah, this is like no pot-boiler that I can think of. Brandt overshot the mark by a mile, coming in way high on this one.

At a time in our nation’s history when we are steeped in talk of race, cops and black men, and justifiable shootings, a book called The Whites grabs our attention. But the treatment of race in this novel is the healthiest, most irrelevant subject in this novel. In this book race is a descriptor, not a definition.

The Whites instead refers to the white whales, suspects who got away: “those who had committed criminal obscenities…and then walked away untouched by justice…” Every cop has his or her own personal “white,” and Price is democratic in this, too. One of the five hard-core detectives who started as cops in one of the worst precincts in the East Bronx and were then promoted and dispersed as detectives across the boroughs is a woman. As a group, they are called the “Wild Geese.”

All of the WG were obsessed with their Whites,

“heading into retirement with pilfered case files to pore over in their office and basements at night, still making the odd unsanctioned follow-up call: to the overlooked counterman in the deli where the killer had had a coffee in the morning of the murder, to the cousin upstate who had never been properly interviewed about the last phone conversation he had with the victim, to the elderly next-door neighbor who left on a Greyhound to live with her grandchildren down in Virginia two days after the bloodbath on the other side of the shared living room wall—and always, always, calling on the spouses, children, and parents of the murdered: on the anniversary of the crime on the victims’ birthdays, at Christmas, just to keep in touch, to remind those left behind that they had promised an arrest that bloody night so many years ago and were still on it.”

Only Billy Graves, the youngest of the WG, is still on the job. “His flatline personality and bland solidness” is the rock in his marriage to a damaged ER nurse, and to the group of WG who find they fear his uncompromising relationship to the truth and duty.

There was also another detective, not a WG, who had his own personal White. This novel is about finding Whites and bringing them to justice, legally or not. Price makes us see the struggles, hear the backstory, recall the misery, and gives each man and woman a reason for murder.

This novel recalls “mean streets” narratives of the past, either in film or fiction, either in Europe or the United States. The idea of Whites is not new. But Price makes it as American as Melville, as classic as Moby Dick. The laconic questioning, the deadness behind the eyes, the sense of justice, the quality of the brutality, the mean streets—these are all ours.

-----------------

I was looking for something to listen to while working and this one was available. I;d already liked the book, so was very pleased to find the audio terrific. Read by Ari Fliakos and produced by Macmillan Audio, this audiobook is a perfect listen. All the confusing bits come clear, and the desperation of the characters comes through loud and clear.

[PattyMacDotComma · Rating 5 out of 5]

5★
The best. World-weary, damaged cops, despicable criminals, innocent children. And everything we need to know to fill in the gaps and connect the dots that string them all tightly together.

Brandt (Price) is sparing with his language. Nothing unnecessary, just what we need to know. Incidentally, not all questions have question marks, and I never missed them.

A co-worker:

“There was a light rapping at the front door; then Alice Stupak, five-four but built like a bus, eased into the apartment, her chronic rosacea and brassy short bangs forever putting Billy in mind of a battle-scarred, alcoholic Peter Pan.”

Billy is the main character, a cop on night watch, one of a group of close old mates, the Wild Geese, who knew each other’s secrets, weaknesses, and “Whites” – those criminals who somehow escaped jail and justice.

This is their story, told mostly from Billy’s point of view but sometimes through Milton’s, a particularly rough cop who’s not one of the Wild Geese but is stewing over his own White.

Billy and his wife, Carmen, have two young boys, and she’s a nurse, so they sometimes cross paths at the hospital when he’s bringing in the wounded from both sides of the law.

Billy wears the worries of all his mates, one with a son with leukemia, another who runs a funeral home and has a badly disabled son in a wheelchair.

Plenty of crimes, plenty of weird victims and crims, plenty of interesting places to find bodies – the streets, the hospital, in boots of cars, being prepped for burial.

Side note: Redman, the guy with the funeral parlor, comments on the size of people.

“I had two bodies coming in this week, a five-hundred pounder and a four, but when I added the weight of the casket, I realized that my front steps would collapse, so I had to farm them out to Carolina Home up the block because the director over there was smart enough to put in reinforced steel.”

One of the first calls of the night as the book opens, is Billy attending a body that’s bled out (inconveniently) at Penn Station. Turns out it’s somebody’s White, too. Have to clean it up or preserve it – decisions, decisions. Billy spots a guy sleeping nearby who has blood on his Rangers jersey so Billy shakes him awake.

“The kid came out of it, shaking his head like a cartoon animal just whacked with an anvil.

‘What’s your name.’

‘Mike.’

‘Mike what.’

‘What?’

‘How’d you get the blood on you, Mike?’

‘Me?’ Still whipping his head from side to side.

‘You.’

‘Where . . .’ Looking at his jersey, then: ‘That’s blood?’

‘You know Jeffrey Bannion?’

‘Do I know him?’

Billy waiting. One Mississippi, two . . .

‘Where is he,’ the kid asked.

‘So you do know him? Jeffrey Bannion?’

‘What if I do?’

‘You see what happened?’

‘What? What are you talking about, what happened?’

‘He’s been stabbed.’

The kid shot to his feet. ‘What? I’ll f*-ing kill them.’

‘Kill who.’

‘What?’

‘Who do you want to kill.’

‘How the f* should I know? Who did it. You leave them to me.’

‘Did you see it?’

‘See what?’”

Everyone is always exhausted, running on grog and pills, and you can smell the smoke from here. Meanwhile, kids still have school to go to and growing up to do amidst the mayhem.

And oh yes, living with Billy is his father, Billy Senior, a former popular cop who forgets he’s not on active duty. He frequently picks up conversations with today’s cops from 20 years ago, but they all play along as if they’re still his rookies.

There’s a strong, sensitive undercurrent, and you can’t help feeling for these people and wishing you could somehow ease their burdens. This is the seamy side of life we all know is there but that we hope “somebody” is taking care of. Billy is one of those somebodies. The people who take care of us.

Just the best.

[Carolyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent novel; gritty plot, colourful characters, sharp dialogue! Harry Brandt (aka Richard Price) spins an excellent tale of five detectives, four now retired or in other careers, who formed a tight brotherhood in the Bronx during the 1990s, doing old fashioned good police work. Each of them is still haunted by a 'white', someone they were unable to put away for a dreadful crime. Billy Graves is the only one of the original pack still in the police, working the night shift in Manhattan while bringing up his two young sons with his wife, Carmel. When one of the 'whites' turns up dead during one of his shifts he suspects that someone he knows might be involved. At the same time someone is watching and targeting his family and he has no idea why. Very readable, as much about family and responsibility as about crime and revenge.

[Carol]

Top Notch Entertainment
The Hook My GR friend Trish’s recommendation with her review of The Whites. Read her review and just try not to add this book to your TBR pile. Bet you can’t resist.
Trish’s Review

The Line “Hey,” Pavlicek held on, “what’s the most bullshit word in the English language.” “Closure.” “Give that man a cigar,” Pavlicek said, then hung up.”

The Sinker – After reading Trish’s review I knew I was in, hook, line and sinker. So much so that now I’m a bit reluctant to write this review, as I doubt I can do it justice. What I can do is take it from a different angle. I listened to The Whites and I can tell you it is just as compelling of a read in audio. Ari Fliakos’ narration was pitch perfect. The pacing, emotion, clearly spoken dialog brilliantly bring each character to life in this crime drama. No wonder The Whites is an Audiofile Magazine Earphones Award Winner.

The title comes from the perps that get away. Each cop has his own personal Whites, those that have done the bad deed on their watch and then walk away from any real justice. These Whites eat at their soul, gnaw at their core, and beg for a more proportionate outcome. But is vigilantism the way to go?

What do we really know about the men and women who wear the badge, very little indeed, perhaps even less so in a city the size of New York? Billy Graves is a guy just trying to do his job, raise his family, love his wife and take care of his retired legend of a father, Billy Sr. who suffers from dementia. Billy is investigating a list of Whites who are being knocked off like Than There Were None. In addition someone is threatening his family and rattling his chance at a peaceful existence. I’d like to say this book is all about the characters, superiorly written but the city comes to life too and can’t be forgotten.

I’m really not certain why Richard Price chose to write this under the pseudonym of Harry Brandt. Price should have no fear that this book was not worthy of his real name. One of the best crime novels I’ve read in a long time. Satisfying in every way. Hope to see more of Bill Graves.

[Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm so glad I was able to read this book without distractions. It's loaded with intense characters, crazy NYC details, and human emotion. I was completely caught up in the layers of the lives portrayed. Although I've seen Richard Price's work in movies, this is my first book.....definitely want to read more. Excellent.

[Karl Jorgenson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the best crime-fic I've read this year. Brandt is an expert writer, on a par with Scott Turow. His use of simile, his word choices, his descriptions bring this story to life at a level few other writers can match.
The characters are real, nuanced, and irresistible. This book would be worth reading just to share these lives.
On top of that, it's a clever, twisty story. Detective Graves is part of the Wild Geese, a group of patrolman who rose in the NYPD ranks through the troubled (crack) nineties. The WGs kicked ass and took names, making their reputations in and outside of the job. Now Graves works the night shift, processing crime scenes and prepping the investigation for the dayshift. He and the other WGs each have a bad player, a murderer, who they were never able to arrest. They call these missed bad guys 'The Whites', perhaps because they're still clean, in spite of their horrible crimes. Now Graves has been called to a subway stabbing, and look at that, the dead vic is one of their Whites. Bad things happen to bad people, but Graves soon gets the idea that something bigger is going on. Wonderful plot, relentless pace, bigger-than-life characters, and Pulitzer-worthy writing.
If only the title were better.

[Ana Cristina Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Richard Price es bien conocido entre otras cosas por los guiones de la magnífica serie The Wire. Nadie como él retrata la lucha entre policías y crimen organizado en las ciudades americanas.

En este tenso thriller sigue la historia de Billy Graves, un detective que se obsesiona con casos no resueltos del pasado, con criminales que salieron impunes. El título en inglés 'The Whites' hace referencia a la ballena blanca de Moby Dick, y el policía deviene en una especie de capitán Ahab cuyo único objetivo es capturar a la presa en una pasión incontenible y autodestructiva.

Es una lectura apasionante aunque es fácil perderse ya que proliferan los personajes y a veces la trama puede resultar confusa. Un relato sobre la justicia y la redención, un thriller urbano que nos lleva a toda velocidad por paisajes estremecedores. Vale la pena.

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

Powerful. Gripping. Emotional. Haunting. What a great introduction to Price's writing. The Whites follows the stories of a handful of police detectives haunted by the perpetrator who got away with it - the evidence wasn't there for a courtroom but they know this is the guy. They can feel it in their bones, hear it in their nightmares. That's the great white fish that got away.

This is the story of men and women haunted by their pasts, by things they did, or failed to do. It is the story of people who've seen such things that they can never fully close their eyes again. And they are all haunted by nightmares from their past, by responsibilities that are hard to bear, by demons who come to life and stalk them.

It is a dense powerful book that is just so chockfull of stuff you wonder if you may need to read it again to catch everything. The main narrative is Billy's point of view, but, particularly in the beginning, there are a lot of names and characters to deal with.

[Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing book. So well written, characters fully fleshed out. Someone else called this a gritty, realistic book and that's a spot on description. Really sorry to see this one end.

[Kathleen Minde · Rating 5 out of 5]

While I have never read anything by Richard Price, AKA Harry Brandt for this book, his reputation certainly precedes him and this latest novel, The Whites, has definitely made me a fan wanting to read more of his work. Although this police procedural could be a quick read for the story alone, I took my time enjoying his writing style, the essence of his characters, and his way of building a plot brick by captivating brick. It is one of the best books of this genre I have read in a long time.

In the 90's, Billy Graves and a tight crew of young cops new to the Anti-Crime unit, self-christened themselves the Wild Geese. They were neighborhood regulars who tolerated the non-violents but gave hard chase, even over rooftops, to their "prey". Each earned their Gold Shield but over the years all the WG have since retired, except Billy. Some moved on to jobs vastly different from their rough riding days: one now the owner of a funeral home, another a superintendent for rundown apartment buildings, one even became a multimillionaire through hard work and good investments. Billy, however, due to the fallout of a tragic shooting, has remained on the dead end night shift.

Through the years, each of the WG has born the burden of what they called a White: a heinous murderer that walked free. Each of the WG has kept in contact with the remaining loved ones, swearing that one day their White would be convicted. Then, one night Billy recognizes a murder victim as one the Whites. Not shedding tears, he notifies the WG. Then, another White shows up dead. While this should be cause for celebration, Billy starts to recognize a pattern. As well as telling Billy's story, there is also a second ongoing narrative concerning another detective who accidently bumps into what he would regard as his own personal White.

While this story has many characters, both minor and major players, this story is Billy's. His wife has major mood swings, his young boys are busy, and amusing, little hellions, and his father with advanced dementia that waxes and wanes live with them. A dedicated cop and family man, he also considers all the members of the WG to be family as well.

Other than the colorful dialogue and writing, the appeal of this story is that no character is written as black and white. Their merits as well as their flaws are laid bare. Billy's love for his wife, his pride in his father's accomplishments before his brain started to deteriorate, even his adoration for his boisterous kids are apparent, as well as his fierce loyalty to his WG. But what really impressed me was how the other detective was written; while angry and vengeful, that detective is also shown as a family man. The WG are wonderfully more than two-dimensional. The reader cares for the characters.

It's a well-written police procedural with compelling characters and a brilliant narrative. Some readers state that the beginning is slow and they are correct. The writer is building his story on the backs of a cast of many. The criminals are even referred to as "actors" and "players" by the detectives.

Highly highly recommended.

[Ross Cumming · Rating 2 out of 5]

Firstly I've got to point out that I'm a big fan of Richard Price's previous novels and was really looking forward to reading 'The Whites', which he has written under the pen name 'Harry Brandt' for whatever reason, I'm not sure.
The novel tells the story of Billy Graves, an NYPD Detective working the Manhattan Night Watch, which is basically a team of detectives who handle all the serious crime that happens throughout the night until their respective Precinct Detectives come on duty the following morning. Billy has ended up in this dead-end job following a shooting several years previous, where he accidentally killed a 10 year old child. At that time he was working in a squad known as the 'Wild Geese' and he still keeps in touch with the other squad members who have also all went their own ways, having either retired or moved on from the 'job'. 'The Whites' of the title refers to cases/murders that remain unsolved but only because there was not enough evidence to charge/convict the known perpetrator and each of the 'Wild Geese' have their own 'White'. During one of Billy's night shifts he is called to the scene of a murder where one of these 'Whites' has been killed.
I so wanted to like this novel but truth be told there was just so much of it that I didn't like. For a start, after setting the initial scene the main plot line doesn't seem to really pick up until about half way through the novel. There is also another major plot line to the novel involving Detective Milton Ramos but to reveal this plot would spoil the novel for any future readers.
I felt there were far too many characters, as we're introduced to Billy and his family, the ex Wild Geese members, their 'Whites', the rest of Billy's night watch squad and to add to that they've all got backstorys too ! I also found that after being introduced to a character and their backstory told, that character only subsequently returns several chapters later but adding nothing to the plot. I must admit that at times I honestly lost track of who was who and what part they had previously played.
I don't know if this was a lengthier novel and has been edited down and thereby it's lost a lot of the plot or whether Price has tried to cram too much into one novel and as a result it's lost its focus.
However I still look forward to any future Richard Price novels but not sure if I'm too keen on any further "Harry Brandt' ones though.

[Stefanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating 4 Stars
Although I have read a great number of police procedurals in the past and stories that feature detectives as their main characters, this book was still different from anything I have read before.

I was not influences by the prior work of the author, as I have not read any of Richard Price's well known novels yet. But I now have no doubt what has drew readers to his work over the years.

Although the book lacked the "Boom!" of the big reveal to me and wasn't fill with many "Aha" moments the writing was so authentic, the dialogue so true-to-life, and the characters so real, I couldn't help but enjoy this book.

The Plot
There are two main plots of this novel both centering around NYPD Nightwatch detective Billy Graves. Graves once part of a tight group of detectives, an aggressive anti-crime unit, who referred to themselves as The Wildgeese. But after an on the job shooting that left him disgraced he bounced around in less than ideal positions until ending up in charge of Nightwatch: a group of detectives that work overnight on any an all major crimes and then hand them over to the day shift detectives in the appropriate precinct come 8:00AM.
The first plot centers around Billy's old group of friends that formed the Wildgeese.
The second plot involves a man named Milton Ramos. A man who intends to hurt Billy and his family, who is stalking them. But why??

This was my second audiobook experience and I wasn't disappointed. Although with so many secondary characters I may have had a better time reading the book. There were so many moments where I laughed to myself, relating wholeheartedly to the actions of the characters, which were so realistic to be in a league all their own. One small example comes to mind. Graves has two young boys who are upset when their grandpa, who suffers from dementia, goes missing. So instead of showing how he feels the 8 year old punches his brother in the arm. I just loved scenes like this, scenes that made me feel like I was watching a reality show, they were so true-to -life
There was actually one point in the novel where I had tears in my eyes,and that never happens.
Kudos to Harry Brandt/Richard Price for a well-written novel!!

[Ellis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, here's the best crime novel I'm going to read this year.

"It was turning out to be another nothing of a tour, the only job so far a four a.m. outdoor scene in the West Village, where a home owner had been shot by his lawn mower while cutting the backyard . . . By the time Billy and Stupak made it to the scene - shots fires was shots fired- Emergency Services was already combing the yard for stray ordnance and some joker had handcuffed the high-end mower to a lamppost."

I read this page at lunch yesterday, laughed out loud & got the side-eye from a colleague, and figured that this book could take a nose dive straight off the edge of a cliff & it would still be the best crime novel I'm going to read this year. I fell face first into the characters, like Kate Atkinson-style, to the point that I'm wondering what Billy's up to today & I'm bummed about Yasmeen's coat. The dialogue is completely brilliant, especially the conversations between Billy and kids, which are so mind-numbingly confusing & precisely like what, say, talking to a six-year-old is really like. The story covers all the usual plot points that you'd expect, but still seems razor-sharp and fresh like a strawberry - case in point - Of course Billy was going to talk to his Alzheimer's-suffering former cop dad about what Pavlicek was up to and of course his father was going to have a story about a cop he knew who "killed someone pretty much in front of his partner" and of course the partner was Billy Sr, but when he looked his son in the eye & told him that he slept like a rock I still got a little chill. The whole scene manages to transcend cliché & seem completely realistic - in fact, the plot of the book itself has certainly been done before, yet at no point did I think ho hum, been there done that The whole package is fantastic, it all comes together so well it makes me tingle, and is entirely deserving of a very rare five stars, which should really mean something since I'm Little Miss 3.09% Average.

[David Carr · Rating 5 out of 5]

Richard Price (using a pseudonym here) is about the best of the best of those we call crime writers. After I finished an overwritten serial killer entertainment, I found reading The Whites to be a reminder of what inevitably gets my respect: no wasted narratives here, respect for the reader, diction of such clarity that only the ambiguities of conscience require attention. His rendering of speech seems to capture the trust and belief that binds the speakers. In this case, there is a great deal to tell: backstories for every character, subtle relationships of trust and connection, secrets among intimates, the hidden histories that remain hidden when we think we know everything. There are also the other hidden things that everyone knows but nobody says, truths about being a parent, a child, a sibling, a member of our substitute families, people who sustain us as though we were all at war together, and to whom we owe our lives. This book is yet another evidence of crime literature as true literature, no apologies. Not many writers can do this, so all praise to The Whites for its many powers made of words.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Brandt lures readers with his raw style and no-holds barred approach to life as a member of the NYPD. Billy Graves has been on he job for a number of years, following in his father's footsteps. Early in his career, the younger Graves befriends number of young cops looking to make a difference and seeking justice on the rough and tumble streets. They refer to themselves as the Wild Geese and become as close to Graves as his actual family. Over the years, the Wild Geese spoke of the 'Whites', those criminals who were surely guilty but were able to dodge the evidence to keep them on the outside. These are the criminals who haunt the dreams of every cop, with little chance for legal retribution. After a few unsavoury choices, Graves ends up as the sergeant of the Night Watch, a collection of cops who work overnights, sweeping up the criminal detritus and connecting with inner-city neighbourhoods. When the Night Watch is called to a stabbing at Penn Station, the victim ends up being the 'White' of his closest friend and fellow Wild Geese member, who traded in the shield long ago. As Graves investigates, he discovers that more 'Whites' may have met similar ends, with no answers to point him in the right direction. On the home front, someone is lurking the shadows, causing Graves' family much grief but leaving little in the form of concrete evidence. Once his children are approached and his father briefly abducted, Graves has no choice but to investigate, poking around on his off-hours. Brandt creates a curious sub-plot with Milton Ramos, who receives inter-chapter vignettes throughout the story. As Graves progresses throughout the novel, it is only a matter of time before Ramos must cross his path, decades in the planning. Brandt offers up a highly intriguing, if not overly confusing snapshot of life in the crime-heavy Big Apple.

Having a hard time digesting the review up to this point? Trying reading (or listening) to the novel firsthand. When first I attempted to tackle the book, I found it scattered and without a clear thread. It was only when I gave it a second attempt, pressing myself to be highly attentive, that I found my niche and was able to digest all that was on offer. The backstories mesh so fluidly with current events, leaving the reader to categorise what has happened, will happen, and is happening, all in an attempt to enjoy a crime novel. However, with patience comes the gift that Brandt has quite the story to tell and that, given the chance, Billy Graves may even grow on you. Fighting crime by night and the saintly life of raising a family by day, Graves and his wife offer the reader a wonderful insight into New York and all it has to offer. Interesting sub-plots, but definitely too 'busy' with cases and calls, Brandt illustrates the down and dirty like no one I have seen since Will Beall presented L.A. Rex.

Kudos, Mr. Brandt for all your hard work and captivating plot lines. A far cry better than any James Patterson attempt at NYPD work, but still a little too confusing for my liking.

Like/hate the review? An ever-growing collection of others appears at:
http://pecheyponderings.wordpress.com/

[jo · Rating 5 out of 5]

the main reason why i read richard price is the language. it electrifies me.

One forty-five A.M.... The sound of tires rolling over a side street full of shattered light bulbs was like the sound of Jiffy Pop achieving climax, the aftermath of a set test between the Skrilla Hlll Killaz from the Coolidge Houses and the Stack Money Goons from the Madisons, four kids sent to St. Luke's for stitches, one with a glass shard protruding from his cornea like a miniature sail. Where they got all the light bulbs was anyone's guess.

By the time Billy and Moretti stepped out of their sedan, the 2-9 Gang Unit, six young men with windbreakers and high tops, were already harvesting collars, plasti-cuffing belly-down bangers like bundling wheat.

i don't know anyone who writes like him. his trademark is the generous use of gerunds, the book littered with -ings, gerunds doing all the narrative and rhetorical heavy lifting. awesome.

the second reason why i read richard price is that he seems to have his finger on the pulse of small life nyc, gang bangers, small criminals, mostly kids, with exhausted, underpaid, put-upon cops picking up detritus all day and night. you get exhausted just reading it.

third reason is that it is the most compassionate portrayal of cops and criminals in a big city you will ever read.

fourth reason is that richard price is always, always big canvas, eveyr story a painstakingly composed nyc bruegel painting done so effortlessly you doubt the man even puts much thought into it.

fifth reason is that there is always a story. at first you think there isn't a story, only canvas, then the story grabs you by the throat and you can't put the book down.

sixth reason is how price does race. one way he does race, he never identifies the race of his multitude of characters. almost never. if you stick with the story, if you pay attention, eventually you manage to make out the race of the main players. at the same time, he doesn't play black. he's a white guy and his protagonist is a white guy. this is the way a lot of the best literature is going and it's a mighty good way.

there, that should do it. i really love this man.

[Michael Robotham · Rating 5 out of 5]

All of Richard Price's skills are on show in this brilliant crime novel. His sense of place, cracking dialogue and colourful characterisation. If you enjoyed THE WIRE, you'll love this story of revenge, redemption and the scars that never go away.

[Jessica Woodbury · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is just nothing like a Richard Price novel. There's nothing like the worn out characters, the rhythm of real dialogue, the point when reading it where you know that this isn't going to end well for anyone. His books are so artfully done that if he wasn't labeled as a genre author he'd be celebrated as a genius.

The Whites is not a departure at all, rather it's one of his best. Not quite as grand in scale as LUSH LIFE, but as good a depiction of a cop's day-to-day life as Price has ever done, this novel is meticulously constructed even though you don't see that until it's nearly done. At first, Billy Graves may seem like the kind of cop you've seen dozens of times before. And in a lot of ways he is. He's not exactly resigned, but he's certainly going through the motions. He loves his kids but also forgets about them a lot. He tends to be a loner even though he has a tight knit group of mostly-former cops from his glory days. What makes Billy so fascinating is not his job but his marriage to Carmen, a trauma nurse whose moods and mental health are unpredictable and inexplicable.

On the other side of the story is Milton Ramos, also a cop, haunted by tragedy. Billy and Milton are tied together in many ways, they are two sides of the same coin, but they're united by the central theme of the novel: the whites. Whites, as in white whales, those perps that got away and never received justice for their crimes. Billy's White is a man who committed a triple murder. Milton's White is best left for you to discover for yourself. Milton's life is vastly different from Billy's, and their spectrum of experiences helps the novel feel more full.

I listened to the audiobook, which had an absolutely amazing narrator, and I hit the beginning of the last chapter right as I had to turn it off at the end of my commute. It was painful.

If you've heard any of Price's interviews, you probably already know that Harry Brandt was an idea he had to write a different kind of novel under a pseudonym (a la Benjamin Black) and it didn't work out. (Harry Brandt is still there due to contractual obligations.) As a reader, this is about as Richard Price a novel as you can get. Full of detail, dialogue that sounds like you heard it on the street yesterday, people whose lives can never quite seem to get where they want to go. It's bleak but not depressing. It's a thrill ride, but not one that leaves you breathless. I wish he wrote a book a year because there's really nothing like a Richard Price novel.

[Lynx · Rating 4 out of 5]

New York City is my favourite place in the world. Every time I miss it but am unable to visit I always pick up a book I hope will put me back on those streets. Richard Price never fails to take me there. As usual Price demands your attention packing this full of layered characters and gripping storylines.

Also recommend watching The Night Of, Price's latest collaboration with HBO. No one does NYC crime mysteries like he does.

[Sketchbook · Rating 1 out of 5]

Down the same NYC-area mean streets w Richard Price/Harry Brandt where the debris is heavy plotting and subplots. He always writes of what he thinks he knows, which is now a problem. Passed to me by a chum, I found it overwritten like a script treatment for a movie I will skip. He often gets critical nods, but, too often, he's a nod-off.

[Joseph Hirsch · Rating 1 out of 5]

"Clockers" by Richard Price, is one of the ten best books I've ever read in my life. It is Dostoevskian in its depth, a remarkable urban drama made all the more remarkable by the fact that Price, a white man, was able to so authentically render the lives of young, black drug dealers in a way that seemed entirely believable. I also enjoy the author's earlier, rawer books that show the seamy lives of lower-class "ethnics" surviving and fighting in the Five Burroughs, a la Hubert Selby or Sol Yurick.

Naturally, then, when I heard Price had a new novel coming out (albeit under a pen name, after a long hiatus), I was excited. The early reviews of the book were decidedly mixed, but I figured that Price was just ahead of the curve, trying out something new and experimental, which I guessed might throw off fans of more standard police procedurals. The main criticisms of "The Whites" that I read, were that there were too many characters to keep track of, and that the narrative wasn't coherent.

Now, having read the book for myself, it pains me to admit that the "nays" have it, at least in this reader's opinion. "Clockers" was a dense read, with formidable paragraphs that filled the pages. "The Whites" reads like a screen treatment, everything cursory and hastily-sketched, large whacks of back-and-forth dialogue that go nowhere (especially disappointing, since, when he's in form, Price is without peer in this department). The once muscular writer has, I think, gone flaccid, and produced an uninspired work.

Many writers have been lured to Hollywood by the blandishments of Tinsel Town, sacrificing their literary talents in order to make more money than they otherwise could. Some writers can deftly go between writing screenplays and novels, with neither skill-set suffering as they shift back and forth, from one form to another. I have to say that, up until now, Richard Price has gotten away with transitioning from one form to another. This time, however, with "The Whites," his long-absence from literature, and the many years he spent doing (quality) TV writing, have, in my opinion, soured his once-great gifts.

[Minty McBunny · Rating 2 out of 5]

I heard the author on NPR and thought it sounded like my kind of book.

I was wrong.

I can not believe this book is less than 400 pages long. It felt endless. The basic plot is solid, but holy needs an editor, Batman. It took the story ages to get started and then even longer to get where it was going. The pacing was just incredibly slow and it caused my interest in the story to wane more and more as a pretty straightforward tale dragged toward a somewhat anticlimactic ending.

[aPriL does feral sometimes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Milton Ramos and Billy Graves are heading for an epic confrontation. Both are 20-year police detectives with family problems, and both are in the middle of a moral crisis.

Bad guys from the detectives' pasts, who the detectives feel should have been killed or imprisoned for life, are haunting them. The legal system that both policemen work with let these terrible people go free. Unfortunately for the cops, each of these particular cases are the one case each man has not been able to forget ever since the perpetrator got away without penalty. However, Milton's criminal 'White Whale' (as in Moby Dick) is someone Billy loves, while the execution of Billy's White Whale might mean the end of his career, or self-respect, or both, if he did it. As different as Billy and Milton are from each other, and although both share a vision of bringing their individual White Whales to justice, the temptation and the satisfaction may not be worth the price each knows will have to be paid for the privilege of becoming their Whites' personal executioner..

What is an evil person? Gentle reader, I'm not going to say, but I am highly recommending this book. It is a superb read.

[Snotchocheez · Rating 3 out of 5]

This will probably satisfy Harry Brandt Richard Price fans jonesing for a double shot of his brand of gritty crime verité. Does he cover new ground here, though? Not particularly. I felt like I read versions this NYPD cop-centric yarn in several other Price-penned forms, most better than this. Lots of hand wringing presaging blustery moralizing to do the right thing that ultimately doesn't amount to much.

(And why oh why do authors feel compelled to use pseudonyms midway through an established career? Even Uncle Stevie and Aunt Joyce Carol Oates would probably agree: unless you're an author gamely trying to reinvent yourself, the use of pseudonyms "this late in the game" smacks of "desperation" (Richatd Bachman pun intended).

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the mid-90s, Billy Graves worked in the South Bronx as part of a special anti-crime unit. He made headlines when he accidently shot a ten year old boy, emotionally scarring Billy and damaging his career. Eighteen years later, Billy has finally become a sergeant in Manhattan Night Watch. The Whites follows the life as Billy Graves as he gets a 4:00 am slashing of a man at Penn Station. However The Whites is much more than a police procedural, rather it covers the life of the people in working the night watch.

Harry Brandt is a pseudonym of crime writer Richard Price who has been acclaimed for his books, like Clockers. He adopted the pseudonym so he could explore his writing in a new direction. However, I have heard that the writing style turned out to be very similar to his other stuff. I have not read anything by Richard Price, but hearing it is similar I hope to pick up Clockers in the future.

What I think stands The Whites apart from a typical police procedural is the fact that Richard Price focuses mainly on the character development. I love exploring the lives of people working in a similar field and how the people are effected in different ways. Sure, Billy Graves is the primary focus and there is a great deal to do with the crime but Price really did a good job of not making this a typical crime novel.

The Whites is a fascinating read and the style of book I look for in police procedurals. The novel even made the Tournament of Books list, but I do not expect it to make it too far. It was a wonderful book but not something I would consider high literature. If you have some recommendations of other books similar to this, please let me know.

This review originally appeared on my blog; http://www.knowledgelost.org/book-rev...

[Gatorman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent book from Richard Price (writing as Harry Brandt) about the former members of a police unit known as the "Wild Geese" and their never-ending battle to deal with their "whites", the criminals who got away with a serious crime on their watch. This story is taut, tough and true, bringing vivid characters to life and exploring the bonds between cops who have more secrets than you can shake a stick at. I've read reviews complaining about wordy sentences and too many characters. Don't see it. The writing is superb and the characters are what bring this story to life. I'd give it 4.5 stars, not quite 5 as it's not on the substantive level as Freedomland or Samaritan, two prior Price novels. Better than his last, Lush Life. Very highly recommended for fans of Price and/or detective novels.