The Whites is the electrifying debut of a new master of American crime fiction, Harry Brandt—the pen name of novelist Richard Price
Back in the run-and-gun days of the mid-90s, when Billy Graves worked in the South Bronx as part of an anti-crime unit known as the Wild Geese, he made headlines by accidentally shooting a 10-year-old boy while stopping an angel-dusted berserker in the street. Branded as a cowboy by his higher-ups, for the next eighteen years Billy endured one dead-end posting after another. Now in his early forties, he has somehow survived and become a sergeant in Manhattan Night Watch, a small team of detectives charged with responding to all night-time felonies from Wall Street to Harlem.
Night Watch usually acts a set-up crew for the day shift, but when Billy is called to a 4:00 a.m. fatal slashing of a man in Penn Station, his investigation of the crime moves beyond the usual handoff. And when he discovers that the victim was once a suspect in the unsolved murder of a 12-year-old boy—a brutal case with connections to the former members of the Wild Geese—the bad old days are back in Billy’s life with a vengeance, tearing apart enduring friendships forged in the urban trenches and even threatening the safety of his family.
Richard Price, one of America’s most gifted novelists, has always written brilliantly about cops, criminals, and New York City. Now, writing as Harry Brandt, he is poised to win a huge following among all those who hunger for first-rate crime fiction.
Masterful writing, though I’d have preferred a more tightly focused, faster paced novel I was just about to post here about this novel when I checked my email and saw a new one from the New York Times, titled, “Books Update: ‘The Whites,’ by Richard Price Writing as Harry Brandt.” I followed the link and read the review, which is by detective fiction author Michael Connelly. Connelly’s review is wholly positive about The Whites and I agree with most everything he says about it. He does say, however, that, “This book literally interrupted my professional and personal life. Once in,…
A bit slow in the beginning but keep on going as the story is well worth reading. The Whites is a good cop novel but it does have it’s flaws. Even though there is a very strong storyline with strong characters there are multiple stories going on at the same time which made the first 100 pages or so to drag as each story was built for each to combine towards the end.
The Super Cops, Gone Ragged In the 1990s, a group of 5 NYPD cops who call themselves “The Wild Geese” win the hearts and minds of the neighbourhood they’re serving by fighting crime effectively, but unconventionally. For one of them, Billy, the high flying abruptly crashes after a righteous shooting leaves a young boy critically injured. Now, Billy is serving out his remaining time on the night shift, while the others have retired and moved on to other things. But each of them has his or her own…