Rating: 
Summary: Good, not great
Review: Like at least one other reviewer below, I read this book following the GLOWING review it got in Esquire last summer from Greil Marcus. I must say, it disappointed me following all that buildup. It is most definitely NOT a light summer plotboiler. Rather, the plot serves primarily for the author to expound, mostly through the pages of White's journals, on the themes of beauty, memory and loss. I also expected a dramatic, and more expansive denouement, based on the Esquire review. Instead, the author just drops a few last clues that cause you to re-examine conclusions you have been coming to in your own mind in the concluding page or two. Lots to chew on, if you are so inclined, but I'd save it for a chilly early winter evening in front of the fire, rather than taking it to the beach with you over Labor Day.
Rating: 
Summary: If you liked The Alienist...this is for you.
Review: Like The Alienist, this is a first rate novel disguised as a noir mystery/thriller. It's set in 1939, and the period details seem perfect: the clothes, the lingo, the midwest setting. Although this is "about" a murder investigation--and it's definitely a good read on that front--the author has more on his mind. I read his earlier book too (In the Deep Midwinter): Clark is looking for ways to explore open-ended questions about faith and doubt without seeming preachy or reductive or even religious in any particular way. In this book, he has a character who is being judged--Mr. White, the local town misfit--by two very different investigators. One is a detective named Wesley Horner, who is in charge of the investigation but is himself guilty of what in the 30s would have been a societal sin. The other a detective named Welshinger, who is a piece of work--his interrogation of White is gripping. In the end, it doesn't matter so much what Mr. White has or hasn't done, but who is doing the asking. This book has a lot of layers and it's not meant to be a fast read, but it really gathers meaning and force as it develops.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating and thought-provoking
Review: MR. WHITE'S CONFESSION is a refreshing mystery--one with a true literary message. I thought that the book was very interesting and read it in one day. I particularly loved the ending, which I have read two or three times, and have found different nuances with each reading. Like real life, there are no black and white answers.
Rating:
Summary: Intriguing, literary mystery
Review: Mr. White's Confession was a very different, yet enjoyable mystery. It was certainly not a traditional mystery, as the truth behind the pivotal murders is revealed halfway through the book. The real mystery was trying to understand the true nature of past and reality as told through Mr. White's interspersed first-person journal entries. Mr. White's journal was well juxtaposed with the tale of Wesley Horner, the down-on-his-luck cop who arrested him. The two interrelated tales work well together to really make the reader think about issues of love and loss, truth and fiction, and the nature of human freedom. The plot never quite reached the can't-put-it-down level, but the well-told story, in often beautiful prose, really sticks with the reader.
Rating:
Summary: Genre Wars
Review: See, here's the problem: publishers force books into categories because they think that's the only way to sell them. If a book doesn't fit neatly into a category, how will the booksellers know where to shelve it? And because selling is what today's publishing is all about, the fact that readers who buy a book like this expecting a typcial genre mystery will be disappointed doesn't matter to publishers. The readers have bought the book and that's all that counts. As for the Edgar awards, I've never agreed with them until now and this time I'm agreeing for a book I feel is far outside their frame of reference. Maybe they just felt like being intellectuals. Meanwhile, this was one of the best books I've ever read. I was very impressed by the writing, the characters and the atmosphere. Yes, there were some anachronisms. But I was willing to overlook them. I wanted to read quickly to find out "who done it," but I also read slowly to savor the voices of the characters.
Rating:
Summary: Powerful "Confession" Transcends the Mystery
Review: The customer comments above are quite accurate for the most part. If you're looking for a "typical" mystery thriller, you'll be disappointed. But Clark's book is so powerful, so moving it transcends the mystery genre. It is so beautifully written that I felt enveloped in these people's lives. The "mystery" was staying with them to see what happens. That the author has created such a strange, awkward, beguiling character in Mr. White, is a testament to his artistry. The biggest compliment I can ever pay a book is to say: "I wished that I had written it." Well, I wished that I had written it!
Rating:
Summary: Accurate Indeed
Review: The reader comment below is incorrect: Nylon stockings were introduced early in 1939. The book is set in late 1939 and 1940.
Rating:
Summary: haunting characters, period-perfect atmosphere
Review: The readers' comments about this book have been of two sorts: those who are disappointed because they expected standard mystery fare (closed room puzzles, gritty contemporary private eyes, etc.), and those who realize that this is indeed a great novel. So be forewarned. If you fall into the first camp, don't bother with this book. If, on the other hand, you want to read a beautiful novel with an unforgettable central character, exquisite yet simple language, a conjuring up of a bygone era, and a stunningly original take on the playings out of crime, this is the book for you. It's a treasure.
Rating:
Summary: St. Paul, Minn. in 1939
Review: This book, ostensibly the story of two murders in St. Paul in 1939, has long swatches of exquisite writing. These swatches are the journal entries of the Mr. White of the title, a sad and strange man with a memory problem, and a penchant for taking photos of taxi dancers. When one, and then another, is murdered, he becomes the prime, and only, suspect, and the story of how the "justice system" worked in those days is quite intersting, and chilling. The other protagonist is a middle-aged widower policeman who is involved in the murder investigation, and his relationship with a 16 year old female runaway. This is a very sad story, but brilliantly told, and well worth reading. The ending really doesn't tie up some loose ends, or even resolve the crimes, although there are hints scattered throughout the book. Even those hints, however, don't actually point out "whodunnit". Read the book and decide for yourself what actually happened so long ago.
Rating:
Summary: He did not do it, probably
Review: This very interesting and readable novel speaks to our contemporary notion of "personal responsibility", which is used as a sort of disciplinary club in such Pop venues as the Ophrah Winfrey show. Mr White's Confession is a sort of thought-experiment in a society in which it is assumed by default that we are all self-present subjects with a deep interest in avoiding personal responsibility, for Mr White is an outlier goof who admits that he may have committed a crime in a fit of absent-mindedness. Mr White's profound naivety turns into a sort of wisdom. For his deconstructive admission, encapsulated in the awesome Latin of the Dies Irae, is "cum vix justus sit securus?" (which of the just shall sit secure?) Mr White refuses from deep naivety to be the self-possessed Cartesian subject that the police investigation demands and instead presents himself as he actually feels he is. This is a person who cannot assert that his biography exhausts his life, or his personal responsibility for a murder that, he admits, he may have committed in a fugue state. This is a person who uses writing like an elderly person with Alzheimer's (who writes "the woman in your house is named Judith, and she is your wife" in a notebook, as an aide-memoire) in the dangerous manner of the Platonic pharmakon But there is to me something deeply moving about Mr White. This novel shows the alternative to such innocence, either the total sacrifice of the innocent or a sacrifice of innocent regions of the heart. The remaining regions are those that say I am no widow and there ain't no flies on me. A simple, deconstructive admission that things might be otherwise is a form of deconstructive prayer We then are in Mr White's world where a song is not a thing at all, and hope is the thing with feathers.
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