The Whites

If your idea of a crime drama is CSI or even Law & Order, you may want to skip this book. But if you want a truer and a more vivid look at life of cops in NYC, you may like ‘The Whites' by Harry Brandt (a pseudonym of Richard Price). The ‘whites' is akin to ‘white whale' a la Moby Dick to signify the ones who got away and consider it your life's mission to pursue. The story follows the life of the protagonist, Billy Graves, who is now a sergeant at the Manhattan Night Watch, a small team of detectives charged with responding to all post-midnight felonies. This tale is deeply enmeshed with his time with an aggressive anti-crime unit known as the Wild Geese in the mid-90s. The toll it took on him and his colleagues during that time forms the basis of this crime drama.

However, I did not find it a page-turner in the traditional sense and it's less of a whodunnit and more of a whydunnit but nevertheless it's engrossing. You do have to keep up with being introduced to several characters which may be disproportionate to the size of the book. The ambiance of the book is very NYC and gritty and can be considered the urban drama of our times. Don't expect any #BlackLivesMatter angle to this tale though. It's a tale of a man fighting his conscience while dealing with the hard nature of his work and protecting his family.

Hesitated with only a 3 star rating for Price's new novel but it was just too slowly paced. It also seems like a bunch of individual stories. I also felt, though at times he nailed it, that he over dis-functionalized (if that's a word) a NYC detective's existence.