The Whites differs from a typical crime pot-boiler by having Richard Price's signature touch with gritty realistic urban settings and peerless dialogue. It differs from a typical Richard Price novel by having a somewhat preposterous plot with multiple connected murders.
Billy Graves is a cop on the Manhattan Night Watch, an assignment he ended up with when he made a mistake as part of the Wild Geese, an aggressive anti-crime unit back in the 1990s. Murders start popping up that seem to connect to his former unit. Meanwhile, another cop sets out for revenge on the person he holds responsible for his brother's death.
The experience of reading a Richard Price novel is immersive, and he creates unique individual characters even for minor players. The Whites has too many characters to keep track of though: there are the cops on the Night Watch, the retired members of the Wild Geese, the families of the former Wild Geese, the criminals that each Wild Goose continue to obsess over and their victims. (The criminals are the Whites of the title.) All of these characters have clear traits and motivations, but it gets hard to keep track of all the names.
If you're going to read a Richard Price novel -- and I recommend that you do -- I'd start with Clockers, Freedomland, or Lush Life. The Whites isn't bad by any means, but it doesn't measure up to Price's best (hence the pseudonym?).
No comments:
Post a Comment