United States
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Crook Manifesto: A Novel
The two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and bestselling author of Harlem Shuffle continues his Harlem saga in a powerful and hugely-entertaining novel that summons 1970s New York in all its seedy glory.
"Dazzling" –Walter Mosley, The New York Times Book Review.
It's 1971. Trash piles up on the streets, crime is at an all-time high, the city is careening towards bankruptcy, and a shooting war has broken out between the NYPD and the Black Liberation Army. Amidst this collective nervous breakdown 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. It's strictly the straight-and-narrow for him - until he needs Jackson 5 tickets for his daughter May and he decides to hit up his old police contact Munson, fixer extraordinaire. But Munson has his own favors to ask of Carney and staying out of the game gets a lot more complicated – and deadly.
1973. The counter-culture has created a new generation, the old ways are being overthrown, but there is one constant, Pepper, Carney's endearingly violent partner in crime. It's getting harder to put together a reliable crew for hijackings, heists, and assorted felonies, so Pepper takes on a side gig doing security on a Blaxploitation shoot in Harlem. He finds himself in a freaky world of Hollywood stars, up-and-coming comedians, and celebrity drug dealers, in addition to the usual cast of hustlers, mobsters, and hit men. These adversaries underestimate the seasoned crook – to their regret.
1976. Harlem is burning, block by block, while the whole country is gearing up for Bicentennial celebrations. Carney is trying to come up with a July 4th ad he can live with. ("Two Hundred Years of Getting Away with It!"), while his wife Elizabeth is campaigning for her childhood friend, the former assistant D.A and rising politician Alexander Oakes. When a fire severely injures one of Carney's tenants, he enlists Pepper to look into who may be behind it. Our crooked duo have to battle their way through a crumbling metropolis run by the shady, the violent, and the utterly corrupted.
CROOK MANIFESTO is a darkly funny tale of a city under siege, but also a sneakily searching portrait of the meaning of family. Colson Whitehead's kaleidoscopic portrait of Harlem is sure to stand as one of the all-time great evocations of a place and a time.
"Dazzling" –Walter Mosley, The New York Times Book Review.
It's 1971. Trash piles up on the streets, crime is at an all-time high, the city is careening towards bankruptcy, and a shooting war has broken out between the NYPD and the Black Liberation Army. Amidst this collective nervous breakdown 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. It's strictly the straight-and-narrow for him - until he needs Jackson 5 tickets for his daughter May and he decides to hit up his old police contact Munson, fixer extraordinaire. But Munson has his own favors to ask of Carney and staying out of the game gets a lot more complicated – and deadly.
1973. The counter-culture has created a new generation, the old ways are being overthrown, but there is one constant, Pepper, Carney's endearingly violent partner in crime. It's getting harder to put together a reliable crew for hijackings, heists, and assorted felonies, so Pepper takes on a side gig doing security on a Blaxploitation shoot in Harlem. He finds himself in a freaky world of Hollywood stars, up-and-coming comedians, and celebrity drug dealers, in addition to the usual cast of hustlers, mobsters, and hit men. These adversaries underestimate the seasoned crook – to their regret.
1976. Harlem is burning, block by block, while the whole country is gearing up for Bicentennial celebrations. Carney is trying to come up with a July 4th ad he can live with. ("Two Hundred Years of Getting Away with It!"), while his wife Elizabeth is campaigning for her childhood friend, the former assistant D.A and rising politician Alexander Oakes. When a fire severely injures one of Carney's tenants, he enlists Pepper to look into who may be behind it. Our crooked duo have to battle their way through a crumbling metropolis run by the shady, the violent, and the utterly corrupted.
CROOK MANIFESTO is a darkly funny tale of a city under siege, but also a sneakily searching portrait of the meaning of family. Colson Whitehead's kaleidoscopic portrait of Harlem is sure to stand as one of the all-time great evocations of a place and a time.
Editorial Reviews
One of the Most Anticipated Books of the Summer by The New York Times • The Washington Post • TIME Magazine • NPR • The Los Angeles Times • USA Today • Vulture • Essence • The Philadelphia Inquirer • Lit Hub • Kirkus Reviews • CrimeReads
"Dazzling … a glorious and intricate anatomy of the heist, the con and the slow game … [Whitehead] uses the crime novel as a lens to investigate the mechanics of a singular neighborhood at a particular tipping point in time. He has it right: the music, the energy, the painful calculus of loss. Structured into three time periods - 1971, 1973 and finally the year of America's bicentennial celebration, 1976 - "Crook Manifesto" gleefully detonates its satire upon this world while getting to the heart of the place and its people."
-Walter Mosley, New York Times Book Review (cover)
"Whitehead's New York of the ‘70s is a fully realized universe down to the most meticulous details (Parts of "Crook Manifesto" would pair nicely with Robert Caro's "The Power Broker") … Crook Manifesto" and "Harlem Shuffle" also form a joint reminder, as if we still needed one, that crime fiction can be great literature. These books are as resonant and finely observed as anything Whitehead has written. They have the pulpy verve of Harlem's crime fiction godfather, Chester Himes, combined with the literary heft of Whitehead's more garlanded novels."
-Los Angeles Times
"Remarkable…For all its slapstick fun, this project also contains the same gravitas as August Wilson's seminal 10-play Century Cycle about Black life in Pittsburgh … When Carney is reflecting, attempting to better understand how Black Harlemites and Black Americans have survived before and will survive again, Whitehead is at his best. It makes this story feel important, not just entertaining, not just suspenseful, not just another surefire bestseller from a beloved author. These are crime novels, yes; funny and fast-paced. They are also the first two installments of a grand historical epic. Novel writing at its best. Bigger and better, together, than anything Whitehead has written before."
"Dazzling … a glorious and intricate anatomy of the heist, the con and the slow game … [Whitehead] uses the crime novel as a lens to investigate the mechanics of a singular neighborhood at a particular tipping point in time. He has it right: the music, the energy, the painful calculus of loss. Structured into three time periods - 1971, 1973 and finally the year of America's bicentennial celebration, 1976 - "Crook Manifesto" gleefully detonates its satire upon this world while getting to the heart of the place and its people."
-Walter Mosley, New York Times Book Review (cover)
"Whitehead's New York of the ‘70s is a fully realized universe down to the most meticulous details (Parts of "Crook Manifesto" would pair nicely with Robert Caro's "The Power Broker") … Crook Manifesto" and "Harlem Shuffle" also form a joint reminder, as if we still needed one, that crime fiction can be great literature. These books are as resonant and finely observed as anything Whitehead has written. They have the pulpy verve of Harlem's crime fiction godfather, Chester Himes, combined with the literary heft of Whitehead's more garlanded novels."
-Los Angeles Times
"Remarkable…For all its slapstick fun, this project also contains the same gravitas as August Wilson's seminal 10-play Century Cycle about Black life in Pittsburgh … When Carney is reflecting, attempting to better understand how Black Harlemites and Black Americans have survived before and will survive again, Whitehead is at his best. It makes this story feel important, not just entertaining, not just suspenseful, not just another surefire bestseller from a beloved author. These are crime novels, yes; funny and fast-paced. They are also the first two installments of a grand historical epic. Novel writing at its best. Bigger and better, together, than anything Whitehead has written before."
Readers Top Reviews
avid reader
My Recommendation 4 STARS. “Crook Manifesto” by C.Whitehead Thank you publisher and NetGalley for the arc ebook.To be perfectly honestI didn’t like this novel as much as the first,Harlem Schuffle. The main character,Ray Carney as well as several other main characters were equally as good as in the first book,but I was turned off by the Harlem politics of the 70’s. I found myself skimming those parts. The falling down and destruction of Harlem then was terrible but to this day still happening in slum-ridden,vacant cities across America where factories were shuttered and jobs were lost. I did enjoy,once again,the humor as portrayed by the “baddies”. I would like to see a third book to find out what happens next to Mr.Carney. This is book #2 of a trilogy featuring Ray Carney. For sale today. His novel,Nickel Boys,also very good.
Jill N
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.
V. Rock
“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.
