I should premise this review with the fact that I loved Harlem Shuffle and felt a profound sense of not being finished with Carney, Pepper and the streets of Harlem that are so beautifully described therein.

I was therefore delighted and thankful to find out that I had been accepted for an ARC of Crook Manifesto but now find myself ever so slightly let down by it.

Both Ray Carney and Pepper return and a lot of their shared history bleeds through over time giving you a real sense of camaraderie but the amazing city I fell in love with during Harlem Shuffle seems to have taken a back seat and is often times just referred to by repeated analogies (I hope I never have to read the words 'ringolevio' or 'schist' again!).

Crook Manifesto reminds me of The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster in the sense that it feels more like three separate novels with some intertwining themes than it does a singular complete novel.

I don't think this will be the last we hear from Carney's Harlem but at this stage, I'm not as excited for any future adventures as I was at the end of Harlem Shuffle.

This book is a sequel to 'Harlem Shuffle'. It's set during he 1970's and I was delighted to return to New York City with Ray and Pepper and to follow their criminal misadventures once again among the mobsters, bent cops and corrupt figures they find themselves inbroiled with.

Once again the story brings together crime, family drama and cultural history. It's an engaging read with a tension surrounding each of Ray's endeavours that keeps the reader turning the pages. The structure of this book is different from its predecessor - it reads like a series of novellas in 3 stories which are loosely connected - but it had a fresh feel to it as it wasn't simply more of what came before.

Ray is a great main character. A true anti- hero. Flawed, inconsistent, at times self serving but always compelling. It was great to see Pepper play a more prominent role in this book - I'd have been disappointed if he hadn't featured. And Harlem is almost a character in itself. Colson Whitehead's writing breathes real life into the streets and into the undercurrents of the neighbourhood and this above all else is what really sucked me into this books.

Ad/ pr copy.

Another excellent outing for Ray Carney still trying to leave the criminal world behind and walk the straight-and-narrow on the streets of 70s Harlem, striving for an honest living selling furniture to its residents. As with the earlier <i>Harlem Shuffle</i> Colson Whitehead’s narrative’s episodic, as much about the history and culture of the city as it is Ray. Characters from the earlier novel weave in and out of the story, as the sometimes-hapless Ray is drawn into a series of nefarious plots despite his every attempt to steer away. As always, Whitehead’s work’s brilliantly researched, hard-boiled yet tender this is a marvellous recreation of a turbulent era that takes in everything from the Jackson 5 and Blaxploitation cinema to police corruption, urban unrest and the slow death of traditional communities. This is another wonderfully-written, fluid and deeply compelling outing for the irresistible, all-too-believable Carney, I can’t wait for the next instalment.

Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Fleet for an ARC

Terrific. This unfolds in three parts- all related, all complex. It's Harlem in the 1970s and Ray Carney is out of the fencing business and running his furniture store. Hah. Not so fast. He's commandeered back in by an incredibly corrupt police officer who promises him Jackson Five tickets for his daughter if he manages the sale of jewels the cop and his partner stole from the Black Liberation Movement. Ray finds himself caught up in a violent night of robbery and mayhem that will reverberate. And then one of his old criminal cohorts who has cleaned himself up, inherited money, and turned himself into an artist, corrals him into allowing the furniture store to be used as a set for a movie. Pepper, who is hired on to provide security, is sent after the female star when she disappears, opening another side of the crook world. And then there's the arson. This is complicated, demands your attention for both the language and the plot, and incredible. It's atmospheric, educational, and so many other adjective but most of all it's an awesome read. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. I'd read the first book so I can't just whether this would work as a standalone but Whitehead does give important tidbits for new readers or to remind fans for each character along the way. I'm eager to see what happens to Ray in the 1980s. Highly recommend.

I absolutely love the writing of Colson Whitehead and I very much enjoyed Harlem Shuffle the first book in this trilogy. I am not really sure revisiitng the same area of New York and largely the same characters did a lot for me. The three parts of the book focusing on different characters helped create interest, but overall I wouldn't jump to buy the third in the series.On the plus side one is always aware that the writing is superb even if the topic fails to hold interest

I’ve read the last four Colson Whitehead novels, two of which won The Pulitzer Prize and one of those “The Underground Railroad” (2016) was in my Top 3 Books of 2017.  His last “Harlem Shuffle” (2021) was critically acclaimed but I didn’t like it as much as the others I’d read by him.  When I found out his new novel was using the same location and characters from that I was still intrigued.  I’d wondered if my opinion of “Harlem Shuffle” was clouded by my great anticipation of reading it.  I did find it a little stilted but I did say of the main protagonist “Carney is a great character and he comes up against a number of other memorable creations here.” So, I hoped that these characters would shine through in this new work.

I did enjoy it more.  Set once again in and around Carney’s Harlem furniture store, moving things along to three different times – 1971, 73 and 76.  In 1971 the prosect of getting a ticket for a Jackson 5 concert for his daughter leads Carney back into a criminal world he thought he’d left behind.  1973 focuses on Pepper, the pal Carney turns to for muscle and intimidation who is working security for the shooting of a blaxploitation movie and who becomes more involved when a cast member disappears.  The 1976 section was the one where initially I felt the least gripped by as City Politics and corruption takes central stage and as a British reader I struggle with the details of this but arson as a potential solution for urban problems got me back into it as events build up to an exciting and darkly satisfactory climax.  The author employs the same digressive tactics he used which tripped me up in “Harlem Shuffle” and readers do need to concentrate as new events being introduced so often trigger back stories but here I felt it slowed down the flow much less making for another involving read.  It’s often funny and is written with such gusto that it doesn’t matter if we don’t pick up all the references.  I would suggest reading “Harlem Shuffle” first to get the most of out the author’s skilful characterisation and interweaving of factual and fictional events.  If you like that then you’ll really get a lot out of this as I felt this was the stronger novel, but then I am a bit of a sucker for 1970s settings.  I’m already anticipating a third instalment.

Crook Manifesto is published by Fleet Books in the UK on July 18th 2023.  Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the advance review copy.

Crook Manifesto is the second book of the trilogy <b>Ray Carney</b>, which started with <b>Harlem Shuffle</b>.

In this book <b>Colson Whitehead</b> brings us back to Harlem in the 70’s, which was at its violence peak. The story is centered around Ray’s furniture store and, similarly with the first book, it is told in three interconnected tales.

Ray’s furniture story is increasingly successful and has expanded. Everything appears to be on the right track for Ray to make it straight and leave his criminal past behind him. Unfortunately, his daughter’s desire to see Jackson Five end up putting Carney on the wrong path again.

Colson is master storyteller, and he is able to tell us, in a beautiful and entertaining way, about African-American history. I’m expectant for the trilogy final book.

<i>I would like to thank Little Brown Book Group UK, Fleet and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.</i>

The further adventures of Ray Carney, and his quest for tickets for a Jackson 5 concert at Madison Square Gardens, his daughter being what we would now calla super-fan. This took me back to my teenage years, watching the Jackson 5 on ‘Top of the Pops’.

The book comprises three mini-stories, which make up a picture of 1970s New York.
In the first, Ray Carney has given up his career as a fence, but he still has contacts, and he gets sucked back in, in order to acquire the tickets. The second story concerns Pepper, hired muscle on a Blaxploitation movie, who prefers to reason with his fists, and the third has Ray and Pepper working together, to find an arsonist.

Reading this was like going back in time., and Colson Whitehead’s language really brings Harlem to life.

Colson Whitehead is one of my favorite contemporary writers. I think I could read his shopping list and write something like “Brilliant, exciting, strongly recommended” as my brain starts to fangirling and loving every single sentence.
I loved his books since I read The Underground Railroad, had a sort of mystical epiphany when I read the Nickel Boy and it was a constant literary love, this means Crook Manifesto was one of my top books of 2023.
I know that you usually end a book before reviewing but I’m loving it so much that I cannot wait to talk about it.
New York, Harlem, the social changes of the 70s are at the core of this brilliant story. There’s violence, there’s fun and there a lot of food for thought as you wonder if the story is going to repeat.
I was curious to read about Ray Carney new enterprises and wondering what would happen. I wasn’t disappointed and I can tell this is a great story, a book that brought me back in time and showed me another side of New York.
As I grew up listening to Patti Smith and Television my vision of the city was quite arty and bohemian. This story shows the other city and showed me how normal people was living, the racism and the social issues.
It was like travelling back in time to a parallel reality and discovering new aspects and event.
The storytelling, the character and plot development are as super as usual and I’m not fangirling while I write this.
I strongly recommend it and cannot wait to read the third book in the Harlem Trilogy
Many thanks to Little, Brown Book Group UK for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

Colson Whitehead's latest novel appears to indulge in a nostalgic - or perhaps there should be a case for coining a word like 'anostalgic' - run through the seedy districts and black ghettos of New York in the style of the classic crime of Chester Hines and the blaxploitation movies of the seventies. As you would expect from this Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Crook Manifesto comes however with added authenticity and historical backing. As entertaining as it might be, the first part alone an incredible full pelt crime spree the like of which you haven't seen since those classic movies of the 70s ("a kamikaze run through Harlem"), Whitehead doesn't let you forget that it has a serious and relevant side to the black African-American experience in this three part novel.

The opening chapters of Crook Manifesto actually give little indication for what is ahead, but what they do is establish a context for what is to come that is beautifully drawn and immediately immerses you in the character of Harlem, New York and the attitudes and behaviours of the wider society of the time. Ray Carney, who was introduced in Colson's previous novel Harlem Shuffle, has put aside his criminal activities as a fence for stolen goods and has overcome the odds to now own his own successful business and property as a furniture store manager in Harlem. It's 1970 and things are changing for black people in America.

It's still Harlem though, and Carney's past associations with crime come back to haunt him, although perhaps not to the extent that he expected when he attempts to hit up with an old acquaintance, police detective Munson. It seems like a simple matter to call in a favour from a well-connected friend in order to get a couple of tickets to take his daughter to a sold-out Jackson 5 concert at the Madison Square Garden. There might be a price to pay, but Carney clearly has no idea of what lies ahead when he finds Munson in hiding pending an official investigation into crooked police dealings. Munson is desperate and planning to embark on one final 'collection' round.

The opening story is wild enough, but NYC is a big city with many different stories, recollections and experiences and Whitehead continues to dig deep. Carney is still involved in the story in Part Two, but the focus switches to Pepper another one-time crook who also finds that it's difficult to entirely escape from the past, particularly as there are still considerable challenges for a man like him in New York in 1973. As it happens, Pepper is at all loose end after his last operation failed to live up to promise and is working as a guard/bouncer on the film set of an art blaxpolitation movie, Code Name Nefertiti. The director Zippo is using Carney's furniture store for a couple of scenes and has employed Pepper to stop equipment being stolen off the set. When the film's super spy female lead disappears mid-shoot and Pepper trawls some of the lowest hangouts in Harlem to find where she has gone.

The plot progression is again quite thrilling with Pepper encountering all manner of characters and hoods across Harlem, but the richness of the tale and an insight into what lies at the heart of the novel is in the side observations; the social context, the tensions and the criminal underground's hold over the city. Pepper sees how the city is changing, sees how 'brothers' are becoming more open, asserting their own identity as race relations are changing. Not necessarily improving, but becoming perhaps more entrenched or focussed by "crazy radicals and nutjob revolutionaries". There's a wonderful mix of social change and personal reminiscence that is revealing of the changes, and of the things that haven't changed so much. Either then or now.

One of those things might be ever-present is corruption. In Part Three, in 1976, Carney teams up with Pepper again to investigate the deliberate burning down of a Harlem building that results in the near death of a young child known to Ray. The burning of buildings in Harlem is not infrequent, but there are lots of ways for a building to burn and it's often for insurance and often involving arsonists. But who ultimately benefits? Sometimes the tenant, the owner, sometimes the city planners, sometimes the politicians looking renewal and reelection. Sometimes it's just crazy arsonists, firebugs. Either way, it's often organised and dangerous to get involved, ask questions, try to find who is behind it. As Ray and Pepper are about to find out.

Again, aside from the crime thriller aspect, the third part of Crook Manifesto is another rich insight into American corruption, filled with entertaining anecdotes and humorous observations. It's provides a full open account of the social background of everyone involved, taking in the history of the constantly changing face of the city. It might be set in Harlem across a large part of the 1970s, it might be a venture into its colourful past filled with ruthless characters, as well as others just trying to survive, but Crook Manifesto is also a reminder that the lawlessness is still there, not confined to Harlem or New York, still open for all to see and still with the authorities turning a blind eye while they can make a great deal of money from it.

I thank NetGalley and Little, Brown Book Group UK, for providing me with an ARC copy of this novel, which I freely chose to review.
This is the third novel by Whitehead I read, and the second in what has become The Ray Carney Series. The first one, Harlem Shuffle, centred on the life of Ray Carney and a large number of Harlem characters in the 1960s. Carney is the African-American owner of a successful furniture business in Harlem whose father had been a criminal, and who has also flirted with the wrong side of the law (being a fence for some criminals). This novel follows his adventures in the 1970s, and it shares many things with the previous one, not only the main protagonist and many of the secondary ones but also its division into several distinct parts (which could almost be read like independent novellas), the narrative voice (the story is narrated in the third person, omniscient. Although each part is told mainly from the point of view of its protagonist or protagonists, readers also share in the thoughts of some of the other characters, some pretty minor ones, and that increases the richness of the experience), the magnificence of the language, and the total immersion in the era and the place.
The fist part of this novel is dedicated to Carney, and we find him having decided to go straight and not having engaged in any criminal activities for years. His daughter desperately wants to see a concert by the Jackson Five, and the tickets are all but impossible to get hold of. In an attempt to not disappoint his family, Carney moves heaven and earth to try to obtain a pair of tickets, and he ends up being dragged back again into the criminal underworld. In the second part, the protagonist is Pepper, a very special hoodlum who was one of my favourite characters in the first novel, and I was happy to see him again. He is hired by a movie director (with a connection to Carney) intent on filming a Blaxploitation flick, banking on the genre’s popularity at the time. Pepper is supposed to be providing security, and when the female protagonist disappears, he is tasked with trying to find her. He ruffles a few feathers in the process. The third and final part of the novel sees Carney offering Pepper what appears to be a pretty easy job: the son of one of his lodgers got seriously injured in an arson attack on an abandoned building, and Carney wants Pepper to find out who set the fire. Unfortunately, they cross paths with pretty unsavoury characters and come across a network of corruption that reaches the highest echelons of the city and its government. If the first part gave readers an insight into police corruption, and the second illustrated that the Blaxploitation genre had some pretty tough and ugly realities to compete with, the third part exemplifies how the city always wins, survives, and is reborn from its ashes like the Phenix.
Whitehead has won two Pulitzer prices, and he is well-known and deservedly so, but some readers might not be familiar with all of his writing and with the fact that he writes in a large variety of genres, non-fiction included, and judging by what I have read so far, excels in all of them. Expect the unexpected would be my advice when it comes to reading one of his novels. The other one, especially with this series, would be to sit back and enjoy the ride. Many of the comments and reflections I made when I reviewed the first novel in this series apply to this one as well. I have mentioned the vivid sense of place and time, and when we follow one of the characters, we follow their thoughts, and how they might jump from topic to topic or take us in unexpected directions and detours. Carney often thinks about his father and his criminal activities, about other family members and friends, about co-workers, employees, or people he knows, and the same is true for Pepper, although their lives and their cognitive styles couldn’t be more different. Pepper is not a man who spends a lot of time pondering big issues or trying to find the meaning of life. But that does not mean his thoughts and reflections are never insightful or accurate. Readers who don’t mind following their narrators down alleyways and convoluted routes will be rewarded with some wonderful adventures and a pretty different version of recent history from the one most of us have learned in books.
Now, if I had to share my totally subjective experience of reading this novel, I’d say that when I started the book I felt joy. Not because the story was heart-warming or inspiring (quite the opposite at times), but because the language and the writing are so full of rhythm, they conjure up so many images of life in Harlem in the mind, and there is such a playful nature to the telling of the story (and plenty of humour, even if sometimes it might be pretty dark), that I never wanted it to end. I don’t mean that the plot (or plots) is not interesting, but Whitehead is an author I’d be happy to read no matter what he wrote, even if it was an updated version of the Yellow Pages. He is “that” good.
Of course, with a book set in this era and with these kinds of protagonists, you have to expect violence, plenty of unlawful activities, some bad language (although I don’t recall it being too extreme, all things considered), and less than clean habits. As I had mentioned in my previous review, women don’t play the protagonists of the story (the actress is quite central to part 2, but she is, in fact, the object of the search, although things might not be as simple as they appear at first). Still, I think we get to hear a bit more about Elizabeth, Ray Carney’s wife, in this novel, even if it is through Carney and Pepper’s perceptions. Some readers also noted that as this novel is the second of a planned trilogy (I must confess I haven’t read any interviews with the author, so I cannot confirm that is his intention, but it stands to reason considering the ending, which I will not spoil for other readers), it might feel at times as if the author is setting things up for the final instalment, rather than being totally focused on what happens here. I am not so sure about that and having checked some of the other early reviews, it seems that some people read this book not realising that there was a previous novel with the same main character, and most of them enjoyed it as it was, and then decided to go back and read the first one, so it is probably only evident for those of us who had already read Harlem Shuffle. In any case, my recommendation would be to read that novel first, as that sets us on the path of what might come, and also gives us a clearer picture of the Harlem of that era, and increases our enjoyment.
This is the second novel of an ambitious series, one that builds up a fictionalised history of Harlem from the 1960s onward, a history whose protagonists are not politicians and big businessmen, but rather those who live on the verge of legality, trying to survive, and upholding their own standards of morality, even if it is a crook’s morality. Because, if there is one thing this novel asks, loud and clear, is this: who isn’t crooked, at one level or another, in one aspect of life or another?
I had to share a couple of Carney’s thoughts before I left:
Crooked stays crooked and bent hates straight.
What else was an ongoing criminal enterprise complicated by period violence for, but to make your wife happy?

⭐ ⭐
Crook Manifesto
by Colson Whitehead

Not for me.

I have loved The Nickel Boys and The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead but I just could not get on with Harlem Shuffle. Partly because I felt it was missold as a heist story, and partly because I found it rambling, boring and lacked arc.

Little did I know that this is the second part of that Trilogy, that's on me, but I gave it my best shot, and again I struggled through this story. I read hefting chunk after chunk, and by 55% I still didn't know what I was reading.

When I begin to look for other things to do instead of picking up my current read there's something wrong, so I'll admit to scan reading to get to the end and we'll leave it at that.

It's a conscious uncoupling with Ray Carney and me, but whatever Mr Whitehead writes other than that, I'll read.

Publication date: 18th July 2023
Thanks to #netgalley and #littlebrownbookgroupuk for the eGalley

We first met Ray Carney in Harlem Shuffle, a story crammed full of intriguing, shady characters struggling to make a living while racial tensions simmered, without ever coming to the boil.

Fast forward 10 years to Crook Manifesto, a story in three acts. In 1971, Ray’s furniture shop is thriving and he has retired from the precarious world of handling stolen goods, until that is, his daughter is desperate for tickets to a Jackson 5 show. Carney resorts to asking a favour of a corrupt police contact from his past and suddenly Ray realises he never can say goodbye to a lifestyle that was in his blood from birth. Two years later, the story focuses on Carney’s partner in crime, Pepper, who in hard times resorts to taking on seemingly easy security work for a film producer. But when the female lead inexplicably goes missing, Pepper finds himself mixed up with some of Harlem’s least desirable characters as he tracks down the starlet to keep the show on the road. The conclusion takes place in 1976 when arson and bogus insurance claims proliferate in New York’s run-down areas. Carney and Pepper stir up much more than they bargained for when trying to find out who is behind a fire that comes close to claiming the life of the young son of one of Ray’s tenants.

In each of the acts the cast is a potpourri of ne’er do wells, crooks, corrupt policemen and unscrupulous politicians. Compared with Harlem Shuffle I felt the mood was more sinister, the violence more grievous and the racial tensions more polarised. There is dark humour (an upstart restaurateur commissioning Pepper to steal the secret recipe of her established rival’s hitherto all conquering fried chicken dish being a prime example), but Crook Manifesto is less laid-back than Harlem Shuffle, instead reflecting the uneasy downward slide in the fortunes of New York’s seedier neighbourhoods in the early 1970s.

Another captivating, evocative, if this time slightly more menacing, tale of Harlem folk from Colson Whitehead.

Thanks to @netgalley and @littlebrownbookgroup_uk for the opportunity to read and review an eARC of Crook Manifesto, which is published on 18th July.

Whitehead must have great fun doing research. He uses his craft to give us a crafty tale where every angle is an opportunity in the making. With the single turn of a card the game changes and 'poof' the tables turn and new guys are on top. Good start for my first Colson Whitehead,

His main protagonist is New York, unperfumed and unadorned, greasy and sleazy, a city out to get you at every turn. But like Cavafy's The City, it's the axle of those that live there. The book is divided into three stories, loosely connected, giving a well rounded overview of how the city, the system, presses down on the lives of it's dwellers and the resultant push and pull. Cause and effect, everything is then grinded in and becomes part of the system. We have Ray jonesing for a 'crooked' hit and Pepper with his own set of rules that make his world go round.

I now have to go and read Harlem Shuffle as after reading this I found out I should have read that first.

An ARC kindly provided by author/publisher via Netgalley.

Colton Whitehead’s Crook Manifesto is a wonderfully insightful sneak peek into the moral ethos and retribution of the criminal underworld of interconnecting characters within New York’s Harlem in the 1960s and 1970s. Hard-hitting and gritty in its portrayal of the microcosm of everyday life, need and greed of the inhabitants of the city and its underbelly and those who become unwittingly involved in its operations.

I enjoyed this a lot. It is a loose follow up to the excellent Harlem Shuffle and I found it easy to fall back into the world of hustlers and unique characters Colson Whitehead has conjured up. It was a joy to read and I’d definitely recommend it.

Colson Whitehead has that skill of finding the correct mood and the right words to describe any situation.
As can be imagined the people and places in Colson's latest work are not the most law-abiding or pleasant.
The events are described in a believable manner. The story keeps the reader enthralled.
This book is a psychological thriller of the first order, reminiscent of Georges Simenon.
I am not saying that the characters and setting are similar, but the feel of the story and the mechanisms used are similar.
An excellent read.
My thanks to the author and to the publisher for an advanced copy for honest review

4.5

So we come to the second part of the Harlem Shuffle trilogy. This time we follow Carney as he negotiates his way through the 70s - a time of upheaval and change in Harlem and for Carney who finds himself back off the straight and narrow without much trouble.

Thankfully he has the invaluable Pepper at his side and we learn much more about Pepper's life as he has to go in search of a missing actress in the second third of the book.

In the final third we follow Carney and Pepper in their endeavour to discover which arsonist is responsible for almost killing a child (one of Carney's tenants).

I found the first part of Crook Manifesto really slow and considered shelving it but I'm glad I continued because once Pepper takes over the action speeds up and the story really gets interesting. The final part is much more Harlem Shuffle and true to the original Carney - ducking, diving and getting one over on anyone who tries to get the better of him.

I still think these books are far weaker than either Underground Railroad or Nickel Boys but I am still looking forward to the final part of the trilogy which, I assume will bring Carney up to the present day. Whitehead is still a master storyteller exploring his craft so I can forgive him a little waffling and circuitous rambling for the rest of these novels.

Highly recommended. Not sure if you could read this without having read Harlem Shuffle first but Shuffle is well worth the read anyway so read them both.

Smart. Readable. Sharp. Loved it. A cross between the best of crime fiction and literary fiction. Perfect for fan of genre and good writing.

You're always safe in Colson Whitehead's hands. Crook Manifesto is a sequel to the fantastic Harlem Shuffle, which is divided into 3 sections covering different years in the 1970s as New York falls apart and the 1976 anniversary of independence looms. The central figure, Ray Carney, is as compelling as ever and his slipping back into criminal ways in the first section is convincingly and grippingly told. Carney is a more peripheral figure in the second, which focuses on the making of a blaxploitation film, for which Carney's 'friend' Pepper has been hired as muscle. At first, the connections between these two sections are unclear, but the final section offers a reckoning and a through-line which unifies the book with its themes of destruction, decay and threat. At times the book runs the risk of reading like a film or TV series treatment, but Whitehead's writing is too careful and accomplished for that. His descriptions of furniture in Carney's salesroom are a treat in themselves and observations like "any smile that broke out on [Pepper's] face was a mutiny swiftly put down" shows the books are as well-observed as any hardboiled detective novel. Roll on Ray Carney 3.