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THE WHITES
by Richard Price writing as Harry Brandt
Henry Holt, February 2015
333 pages
$28.00
ISBN: 0805093990


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

You've never heard of Harry Brandt? That's because it's a pen name for Richard Price, the accomplished author of CLOCKERS, FREEDOMLAND, LUSH LIFE, and other novels. Evidently he decided not to go incognito since the book's cover says "Richard Price, writing as Harry Brandt." His style is unmistakable - dense, evocative, with smart dialogue and a hint of wistfulness for things that didn't turn out quite as expected.

A tight-knit circle of police started out in a rough part of the Bronx as the Wild Geese, a hard-charging gang of take-no-prisoners officers who treated criminals as a team they played against, dispensing their own justice and scoring enough points that each of them was rewarded with a gold shield. Though they were dispersed to different parts of the city and now only one of them, Billy Graves, remains on the job, five of them still get together regularly to reminisce about the days when they ran together as a team and to cheer each other up when they are haunted by the crimes they couldn't solve or forget. The "whites" of the title are the white whales, the unsolved crimes that obsesses each of them. "No one asked for these crimes to set up house in their lives," Billy thinks. "No one asked for these murderers to constantly and arbitrarily lay siege to their psyches like bouts of malaria, no one asked to feel so helplessly in the grip of this nonstop black study that had no choice but to pursue and pursue."

Billy Graves works the night shift, catching crimes committed in the night, queueing up investigations for the next morning. One night, he's called to the scene of a stabbing in Penn Station. The victim is one of his buddy's whites, a man who let his learning-disabled brother take the rap for murdering a child. It's some kind of justice, though there's no suspect in sight. Meanwhile, another officer is haunted by his own unresolved crime, one that has left him hungry for vengeance. His anger is fixed on Billy's wife, Carmen. Eventually, his quest will lead him to cross paths with Billy, his wife, their two boys, and his elderly memory-impaired father.

There are a lot of characters to keep track of in this novel, but each is brought to life in solid, emotionally true detail. Price has a knack for the telling detail, the touch of wry humor that brings his scenes to life. The plot is tangled, but a theme carries through it, raising questions of whether justice is ever possible, and whether the desire to set thing right corrodes the righteous.

According to a profile of the author published in the New York Times, he originally intended to write a fast-paced plot-driven novel, but the characters refused to be anything but complicated human beings. For this, we can be grateful.

§ Barbara Fister is an academic librarian, columnist, and author of the Anni Koskinen mystery series.

Reviewed by Barbara Fister, March 2015

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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