An entertaining and gripping mix of alternate history and pulp fiction that kept me hooked.
I liked the mix of historical and fictional characters, the world building and the tightly knitted plot.
It's the first book I read by this author and won't surely be the last.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Highly entertaining pulp fiction - Matt Henson is a Doc Savage for the Harlem Renaissance.

I suppose this qualifies as alternate history: Henson is himself a historical figure (of considerable accomplishment), as are other principal characters, and the story is set in a well-researched 1920's Harlem populated with historical and fictional characters. The action moves quickly - it's mostly straight adventure with gee whiz technology and touch of science fiction - with a plot complicated by a large cast of semi-good, semi-bad, and downright evil forces operating with and against each other. Henson is an engaging, resourceful hero, anchored by the everyday decency and bravery of the Black residents of Harlem, who consistently and quietly aid Henson in his quest.

Gary Phillips's novel is one of my top reads and recommendations in 2020!
Through a formidable mastery of pulp noir crime fiction writing, Phillips delivers a work of vital revisionist history from an angle. The actually existing Henson lived an amazing life, so he slides into this thrilling narrative naturally, all the while prompting readers little or not at all familiar with Henson to learn some history/biography. Along the way, the novel pulls together a cast of other historical people who inhabited 1920s NY, but I don't want to spoil the surprises. Without disclosing who these folks are, the range of them make visible the combinations of capitalism, nationalism, racism, and attitudes towards the nonhuman world that haunt us today from the past and the future these forces have produced. The novel inspires us all to fight, and to fight together where we must overcome ideological roadblocks to perceiving deep unities, for better futures near and far.
I can't recommend this novel enough!

An old-style pulp adventure updated for modern sensibilities, starring real historical figure Matthew Henson, the Arctic explorer, in the title role.

The author has done a lot of research on the period, and it shows - too much. He's constantly dropping names of contemporary celebrities and bits of researched background that aren't germane to the story. Just because the research well is deep is no reason to make the reader drink from the bucket; it needs to mean something. Some other historical figures are given small parts, though, not just observed in passing - Nikola Tesla, aviatrix Bessie Coleman, gangster Dutch Schultz, and others.

Having done all that research, he then ignores a few historical facts for the purposes of his story. It's set in the early 1920s, at which point Henson was in his late 50s and married to his second wife, but in this version he is (apparently) much younger, and single.

The story is fine, moving along well (despite the research dumps - they are, at least, brief), with lots of action, plenty of threats, high stakes, and fantastical McGuffins. The character reflects on his life a bit in between the action, and if he doesn't come to any real conclusions, at least the thought was put in.

The point of view mostly seems like close third person, following the protagonist and giving us his thoughts and experiences, but occasionally it wanders to someone else for a scene or part of a scene.

I had an advance review copy from Netgalley, and I am skeptical that the many, many, many copy-editing issues can be fixed before publication - most of the common issues (punctuation, homonyms and near-homonyms, dangling modifiers), but a lot more of them than I usually see, even pre-publication.

If you can ignore those and just enjoy the ride, it's a decent pulp adventure with an overlay of history that makes the Harlem Renaissance come to life for a modern audience.