There are two main stories being told here - that of Billy Graves' two decade-long friendships with his first squad, the Wild Geese, and the mystery that surrounds his second wife, Carmen. Both plots are driven by the concept of Ahab's white whale, the one that got away but still plagues the mind into an epic disastrous quest. Prior reading of Moby Dick not necessary, but it is useful in order to really understand the passionate, almost hysterical, need behind the comparison.

Each of Billy's former squadmates has their own White, criminals who have literally gotten away with murder. These Whites are suddenly dropping like flies and Billy is naturally suspicious of their good fortune. His investigation into these happenings, in between the constant calls of stabbings, shootings and fights for his current Night Watch team, reveals things he likely would have rather not known. Regardless, his conviction about the need for punishment wavers back and forth. A friendship such as the one the Wild Geese have built was not a nice or happy thing, but still strong, unyielding and filled with unspoken secrets.

He had nearly lost his mind trying to bring them to justice, turning on his longtime friends in order to do what was right, what he thought was right, and as a result his own eyes on this day were dry as sand. Still, they had all been so tight over the last two decades, had gone through so much together, and for one mad minute, Billy's anger at them for excluding him from their murderous plans trumped his outrage at what they had done. But instead of passing, the anger lingered, Billy wondering if this pop-up fury he was experiencing over having been shut out from this most desperate of compacts between friends hadn't been a part of his anger at them since the beginning.

That, my fine fellow, is what we call "a breakthrough".

As for Carmen's plot? Every other chapter, the point-of-view changes to that of the man whose brother was murdered decades ago - Carmen was involved and now he's finally found her. Milton Ramos is desperate to know why Carmen had given his brother's apartment number to a couple of hitters looking for a drug dealer in their building and her answer is pathetically underwhelming.

"You know something?" Ramos said to Carmen, his voice filled with wonder. "I believe you. Fifteen years old ... I don't know what I was expecting to hear all these years."

The way this confrontation was written, built by a rise and fall of information, tension, short silences and then Ramos' final, unseen

suicide-by-cop

was incredible. Carmen's confession only added fuel to the fire, leaving Ramos an unsatisfying ending to a lifelong quest and the driving need to bring it to a final conclusion. He was less a fatalist than Ahab, but in the end, their fates remained the same.