Review--The Whites by Richard Price (Harry Brandt--non-pseudonym pseudonym)

I picked up this novel, because I was intrigued by a NY Times piece I had read about the author, who had attempted, with this book, to write a ‘bestseller” type book rather than his normal “literary crime” novels. I must be honest and say that I found his statement, “I knew how to dress down, but I didn’t know how to write down,” more than a little condescending, as it implies that anything that has mass market appeal is inherently lower than niche writing, or Literary with a capital L writing, for which Mr. Price is apparently vaunted. As the valley girls of the eighties would have said, “gag me with a spoon.” Bless his heart, he just couldn’t write a non-complex novel.

I was prepared to be pretty scathing, but I will say that I found The Whites a hard boiled crime novel with a brain. Price explores themes of friendship, aging parents, circumstance, coincidence, and more with a spare prose that was the more beautiful for not wasting words. I will differ with Mr. Price, though in his estimation of the average reader—I don’t think readers are as dumb as he seems to think they are. Given the choice, most readers will choose a higher quality book, even if it is [gasp] a best seller. I also think that it is possible for a mass market book to be of high quality.

Billy Graves is a New York detective who appropriately works the graveyard shift. He is middle-aged, having passed his glory years as a young detective along with his cohort—collectively known as the Wild Geese. Most of the geese have gone on to retirement, and now work in private security, a funeral parlor, as a building super, and in one notable case, a real estate magnate. Billy alone toils on as a detective. One night there is a strange case involving the murder of one of “The Whites,” the unprosecuted criminals of the Wild Geese. Each of the WGs has one—the one that got away (Moby Dick reference that perhaps Mr. Price thinks most of us won't catch--pun intended). Once Billy starts looking into the murder of his friend’s "White," he goes down a path that will lead to betrayal, suspicion, confession, and a test of what matters most to him. Is it justice or friendship? Will he choose moral high ground, or revenge? When does the end justify the means, or does it ever? Billy wrestles with all of these questions as well as his own slightly tarnished conscience as he works his way to the final confrontation in The Whites. If you enjoy a complex, tightly woven, gritty crime novel, give The Whites a chance, regardless of the pretentious hype, or perhaps in spite of it.