‘Crook Manifesto’ is the eagerly awaited follow up to Whitehead’s ‘Harlem Shuffle,’ which introduced likable but chaos-prone Ray Carney, a furniture salesman continuously pulled toward morally dubious choices by his deceased father’s criminal legacy. The concept of following Carney through the decades from the 1960s to 1970s is well executed, with plenty of entertaining details about fashion, furniture design, and the 1976 bicentennial as well as disturbing historical context about the RAND Corporation’s role in devastating the local community in Harlem. Characterization remains a strong suit with Carney and his associate Pepper tending toward aspirational respectability and shameless illegality, respectively. Supporting characters new and recurring continue to amuse. At times the plot meanders with a number of loosely linked sub-capers, however, and some of the copious mayhem reads as gratuitous. All in all this second installment of the Harlem series is solid, but leans a little on the goodwill established by the outstanding first volume.

This is a fun sequel to Harlem Shuffle. I appreciate this author’s writing style but don’t think this was the right book for me. It was a lot of explaining and not enough action for my taste.

Colson Whitehead is one of my favorite literary fiction authors. He has won the Pullitzer prize for The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys, both I highly recommend. This is the sequel to The Harlem Shuffle, and this author only continues to impress me with their talent and wit.

This book has 3 parts, each with 9 chapters. I appreciated that, the 3's, which is one of my lucky numbers, so I automatically loved this layout. Each part is a look in the life of a different character that is living, working, in Harlem, NYC, in the 1970s.

What I love so much about this author is that his stories can seem borderline ridiculous and yet absolutely true at the same time. Like, yes, this absolutely happened. I feel like I could look some of these characters up and find their stories online. But, really, there is so much truth and real life happening in every story in this book and every book by this author.

I, of course, highly recommend this series to anyone!

Out July 18, 2023!

Thank you, Netgalley and Publisher, for this Arc!

Colson Whitehead is a master novelist. His writing is incredible. You can see and feel these characters as 1970s Harlem comes alive through his writing. This book brings back Ray Carney from "Harlem Shuffle," the slightly bent furniture salesman, "Crooked stays crooked and bent hates straight. The rest is survival." Similar to "Harlem Shuffle" this story is told as separate novellas that all tie together perfectly in the end. In the first story, Ray has to decide how far he will go to get tickets to the Jackson 5 for his daughter. Not even he suspects just how far he will have to go. The second story focuses on Pepper who is working security for a movie shoot and is an all around fixer. The third story combines Ray's story and Pepper's story in unexpected ways. This isn't a quick read but it is well worth the time investment. As I've heard this is the second book in an expected trilogy, I'm anxiously awaiting the next installment.

Thanks to NetGalley and Doubleday Books for an early copy. My opinion is my own.

Part two of Ray Carney finds the furniture salesman prosperous in the 1970s but still drawn in by the illicit.

New York City and Harlem in particular are falling apart with corruption in the 1970s. Part 2 of the author’s trilogy brings back many of the characters featured in Harlem Shuffle to continue their struggle to survive amidst the crime and political upheaval of that time. The descriptions of NYC are vivid, the characters (though criminals) are likable, and the writing is filled with sly humor. The deep look into how corruption functioned was quite interesting and enlightening.

Thanks to NetGalley and Doubleday/Penguin Random House for the ARC to read and review.

Thank you, NetGalley, for an advance copy of this book! The following views and opinions are solely mine.

First take: I don’t read enough to read this book.
Second take: I should reread Harlem Shuffle
Third take: Do I like this book?
Fourth take: I like this.

I’m obsessed with Colson as a human and a writer, but what I find is that this book, and Harlem Shuffle, are hard for me to start. It is such a vastly different world than what I can even compare in my head that it takes time for me to fully understand the story at play. 1971 NYC is not somewhere I’ve been….NYC is not somewhere I’ve been. But this is the magic of these two novels - I can say that in some abstract way, I HAVE.

Ray and his furniture store with his mix of contacts and this past Harlem I don’t know…a tremendous second part in Ray’s story, and here’s hoping that he takes us to the NYC of the 80’s next. I can see the bridge of Harlem Shuffle and Crook Manifesto, and cannot wait to see where the story with Ray ends. Dear I say….he’s endearing? Captured a piece of my soul? Am I rooting for him?! To the reviewer that said the fried chicken heist was your favorite….you nailed it!

Harlem Shuffle introduced us to Ray Carney, who wants to be a respectable family man but can’t quite give up his life of petty crime in 1960s Harlem. (Though not essential, I recommend reading Harlem first.) When Crook opens in 1971, Ray has spent four years on the straight and narrow. But then his daughter asks for tickets to The Jackson 5, and the only way Ray can get them is to do a “favor” for a bent cop, who asks him to serve as a fence for stolen jewelry. Soon enough Ray is back in the game, and it feels more dangerous than ever. Pick up this immersive, darkly comic historical for the superb voice, palpable atmosphere, and astonishing period detail. I’m already itching to read the final installment of this trilogy: I can’t wait to see what Ray does next.

For fans of James McBride’s Deacon King Kong and Sidik Fofana’s Stories from the Tenants Downstairs.

What a thrilling, beautifully-written ride. Whitehead might be our best living novelist—he seems to improve with every decade. Crime Manifesto builds on Harlem Shuffle and sets the reader up for the final act of the trilogy with unpredictable, vivid prose and settings Whitehead seamlessly brings to life.

I'll open by acknowledging what a number of reviewers have observed: Crook Manifesto is very clearly the second in what will be a three-volume sequence, and being a middle volume, like being a middle child, can be tricky. You're not the first, doted upon, and received with enthusiasm. You're not the last, where things get wrapped up and a kind of completion emerges. Middle volumes have to straddle the distance between first and last, and often serve purposes in support of those other volumes, so their identity comes out less well defined. If you haven't read Harlem Shuffle, pick up a copy of that before moving on to Crook Manifesto.

That said, I want to assert my enthusiastic response to Crook Manifesto. Once you've finished Harlem Shuffle, don't delay; head right into Crook Manifesto. Yes, I had to do a bit of work to remember some characters and some events that occurred or were related in Harlem Shuffle, but that investment was worthwhile, particularly because the characters continue to develop. Reminding myself of who they were in volume one doesn't tell me who they will be by the end of volume two.

*** This isn't a full-on spoiler alert, but what follows below includes more summary than I usually include in reviews. I don't reveal how things end, but I do describe specific narrative arcs. Read or don't read, as you prefer.***

Crook Manifesto reads more like a set of novellas than a single novel, a structure that works well, pulling different figures to the forefront. The first "novella" recounts the end of a crooked cop's career, into which Ray Carney (the main character from volume one) is pulled and from which he may not be able to extricate himself in one piece.

The second "novella" involves the filming of a blacksploitation film, Code Name: Nefertiti, with some scenes shot in Carney's furniture store. Here, the focus is on a generational switch in Harlem. Old bosses are aging out, younger men are trying to force their way in—a switch that's illustrated by by the film that's being shot and by a new character, a Black comic, who is speaking truths that would only have been whispered five or ten years earlier.

"Novella" three is built around the politics and the profits they make possible. Buildings in Harlem are being destroyed by arson, which benefits almost everyone except those living in the buildings, whose lives are at stake. Building owners profit from payment of padded insurance claims. The burned properties can be sold on the cheap to developers who profit. And city officials who turn a blind eye to the arson and its consequences find that they can easily turn to those not prosecuted when running campaigns or trying to push through pet projects.

To indulge in a high-falutin' comparison of sorts, Crook Manifesto is where the DNA of Harlem Shuffle is split apart into multiple strands, ready to be recombined in the finale of the series.

If you can approach Crook Manifesto in that spirit—anticipating both construction and deconstruction—you'll find yourself deeply satisfied. Colson Whitehead knows how to tell a compelling story in ways that have readers rooting for characters they might have less sympathy for if their stories were told by a less able writer.

I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via NetGalley; the opinions are my own.

Furniture salesman Ray Carney has run an honest business for years. Unfortunately, there is no legal way to get Jackson 5 tickets for his little girl. His quest to fulfill her dream pulls him back into criminality in the first of three novellas set in 1970s Harlem. Other installments focus on the production of a blaxploitation film and a rash of arson attacks. Carney is a good, if not honest, man getting by in a world that is alternately colorful, cruel, boisterous, and malignant. Whitehead pulls no punches in describing a city brought low by years of neglect and corruption.

“Crook Manifesto” is a continuation of Colson Whiteheads’s Harlem saga - capturing the drama of New York in the peak of 1970s crime.

The latest book by Colson Whitehead, "Crook Manifesto", is a sequel to, " Harlem Shuffel". While many sequels seem to fall flat, this one actually soars! Mr. Whiteheads prose is a wonder to behold. He is just magic with his ability to turn what could be a banal phrase into something much more.

Many of the same characters are back and a few new ones are introduced. But, there are crooks and there are Crooks! Carney happens to be one of the former. Growing up with a father who was a mean Crook who cared little for outcomes or morality, Carney is a fence. He may be a crook (merely a sideline), but he is a man with a moral compass and a whole lot of heart. You can't help but root for him.

The situations faced in this novel are filled with suspense. They also give us a look into the history of NYC in the 60's and 70's, and the reasons why the politicians couldn't and didn't fix all the urban blight back then.

I loved this book and highly recommend it.

This is the 2nd installment of Ray Carney’s provocative dark saga which began in Harlem Shuffle. Continuing the noir and comic experiential journeys into 1970s NYC features more hustles and schemes with insight into Blaxploitation cinema and the Black Liberation Army’s heroic efforts!

A sizzling hot, hair-raising series of heists set in Harlem in the '70s and also a social critique. Is there any genre Colson Whitehead can't conquer?

“Crook Manifesto,” by Colson Whitehead, Doubleday, 336 pages, July 18, 2023.

It’s 1971 in New York. Furniture store owner and ex-fence Ray Carney tries to keep his head down and his business thriving. His days moving stolen goods around the city are over.

New York is on the verge of bankruptcy. Crime is at an all-time high and trash is piling up. There are shootings tied to the Black Panthers trial.

Ray hasn’t been involved in a crime for four years. But his daughter, May, wants to go to the Jackson 5 concert. He decides to hit up his old police contact Detective Munson, fixer extraordinaire.  But Munson wants Carney to fence some stolen jewelry for him in exchange for the tickets.

The second part is set in 1973, with Pepper, who is hired as a security guard on a movie set being filmed in Harlem. Then the film’s star, Lucinda Cole, disappears. Carney has a minor role in this segment.

Part three is set in 1976, when Carney and Pepper team up to try to find who set a fire that injured a child of one of Carney’s tenants.

“Crook Manifesto” is the second of a trilogy. The first was “Harlem Shuffle.” There is a lot of violence, but also some humor. Harlem itself is the unifying character.

In accordance with FTC guidelines, the advance reader's edition of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for a review.

A powerful and hugely-entertaining novel that summons 1970s New York in all its seedy glory. If you're enjoying the "City on Fire" series on AppleTV, you'll love this.

Colton Whitehead, how do I love thee, let me count the ways. This man can do it all, in every genre, with beauty, style, and panache. Roger Ebert's review of "Ocean's Eleven" opens with the line, "Serious pianists [meaning writer/director Soderbergh] sometimes pound out a little honky-tonk, just for fun" and I think that sums up "Crook Manifesto" quite nicely.

This perfect sequel to "Harlem Shuffle" replicates its three-part structure and gets its protagonist Carney into scrape after scrape. You've got con men, grifters, hucksters, cops on the take, corrupt politicians, backstabbers, and some pyromaniacs for good measure. Carney just wants a taste but he keeps finding out that dipping your toe in still invites trouble.

Trust me: If you enjoyed "Harlem Shuffle," this book is right up your alley.

Colson Whitehead can do no wrong. Immersive, propulsive, researched immensely. I learned a lot about this time period in New York and felt like I was there. There were many characters to keep track of but it was a fun, wild ride. Well done ❤️💕

I greatly respect Colson Whitehead as a writer for his quality of work and depth of concept. Crook Manifestation is no outlier to this, a must purchase for all libraries.