The Whites

Starred review from December 22, 2014
Price (Lush Life) is one whale of a storyteller by any name, as evinced by the debut of his new brand--okay, Brandt's gripping, gritty, Greek tragedy of cops, killers, and the sometimes-blurry line between them. The sprawling tale centers on stoic police sergeant Billy Graves, banished to the purgatory of the NYPD's night watch since his role in a racially charged, politically explosive double shooting a decade earlier. Despite the adrenaline-pumping emergencies that routinely erupt during his 1 a.m. tour, he has time to obsess over his troubled wife, Carmen; his increasingly demented father, Billy Sr., a retired former chief of patrol; and, most of all, his "White" (that's what Billy, with a harpoon salute to Melville's tormented mariner, calls the one who got away): triple-murderer Curtis Taft. He's the elusive monster Billy is fated to hunt, probably even after retirement--to judge from the way Billy's former colleagues in the Bronx, a group calling themselves the Wild Geese, continue to hunt their own Whites. Suddenly, one of Billy's friends' Whites turns up murdered amid a St. Patrick's Day scrum at Penn Station. Soon a second disappears. And then it starts to look as if someone is stalking Billy's family. The author skillfully manipulates these multiple story lines for peak suspense, as his arresting characters careen toward a devastating final reckoning. Author tour. Agent: Lynn Nesbit, Janklow & Nesbit Associates.

April 27, 2015
Still carrying the baggage of a fatal mistake made two decades ago, NYPD Sgt. Billy Graves finds the night shift’s tension suddenly amplified by two revelations. One involves the murders of several “whites” (criminals who remain as elusive as Melville’s infamous white whale). The other concerns a mystery man who is stalking members of Billy’s family. Price, an expert at creating humane characters in situations that challenge their humanity, shifts the focus to a mystery man, the depressed Milton Ramos, also a city cop, who seems to be courting suicide from the moment he’s introduced. With effortlessness, reader Fliakos creates an assortment of New Yahk and New Yawk accents and attitudes for the book’s cops and robbers. But his skill shines brightest at mirroring the increasing desperation in Billy’s voice and the flat, affectless sound of Ramos’s speech. A Henry Holt hardcover.

This combination of author and narrator results in a remarkable listening experience. Price's audiobook, with its titular allusion to MOBY-DICK, uses a crime story as a framework for exploring themes of family, love, and forgiveness. The superbly written text enables Ari Fliakos to bring to life a plethora of voices with an accompanying range of emotions. Whether it's the gut-wrenching funeral, the attempts of the protagonist's wife to maintain a semblance of normalcy when the family is under attack, or the main character's anguish over his father's dementia, Fliakos meticulously delivers each voice with full, rich characterizations. It's no surprise that he continues to win awards for his narrations. M.L.R. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine