The Whites

By Richard Price writing as Harry Brandt. (Henry Holt, 333 pages, $28.)

The setup ­— a crew of aging New York City police detectives nagged by old cases where bad actors got away with murder — is perfect territory for Richard Price, the author of "Clockers" and other justly acclaimed crime-fueled character studies. In this "Dexter"-like story, however, the overstuffed main plot is less vivid than some side dishes.

Seriously unbalanced and sadistic veteran cop Milton Ramos threads his revenge darkly through the gloom, and dented hero Billy Graves struggles to keep his career and family together while working the overnight shift that chases crime and mayhem up and down Manhattan. In his spare time, Graves connects the dots as unpunished perps of yesteryear begin dropping like flies in a series of violent incidents. Readers will need to refer back to page 27 to keep it all straight.

Price's brilliant ear for how cops and criminals talk is much in evidence, along with his keen descriptions of bars, cars and urban crime scenes. Graves' former colleagues are a cavalcade of dreams deferred, damaged goods and midlife crises. Gone missing, though, perhaps muscled out by the overly complicated multiple story lines, are the one or two deeper characterizations that have made several of Price's earlier novels so memorable.

CLAUDE PECK

Senior metro editor for nights

The Travels of Daniel Ascher

By Déborah Lévy-Bertherat. (Other Press, 182 pages $22.95)

A family mystery unfurls as a young woman comes to Paris to stay with her strange great-uncle Daniel. Busy with her studies and a budding romance, Hélène isn't interested in getting closer to Daniel. She knows him mostly from his unwelcome antics at holiday dinners and the series of children's adventure books that he wrote and she largely ignored. That changes when she discovers that her college friends, and especially her boyfriend, are huge fans of Daniel's books.

"The Travels of Daniel Ascher" by Deborah Levy-Bertherat

The more she gets to know him, the more she puzzles over his place in the family. The more she learns, the more she suspects that something deep in the past is affecting the present. And where exactly does Daniel go on his travels?

This is a debut novel told through our heroine with the clear voice of a young woman. Run-on sentences of dialogue put the reader smack into the conversation. The writer plants clues to mysteries that will be solved later, such as the contrast between a giant atlas in Daniel's apartment and the teeny secret in his shirt pocket. While the book is a satisfying read, the spare writing is at odds with the emotional content of the story. We don't get to know any of the characters well. Our heroine remains distant, even in her love scenes. Perhaps that's intentional, to convey the pains of childhood that are hidden in adulthood, but still very much alive.

Maureen McCarthy

Team leader