A furniture store owner and ex-grifter leaves the straight and narrow path when he needs Jackson 5 tickets for his daughter in 1971 Manhattan. - (Baker & Taylor)

A furniture store owner and ex-grifter leaves the straight and narrow path when he needs Jackson 5 tickets for his daughter in 1971 Manhattan, in the new novel by the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Nickel Boys. (historical fiction). Simultaneous. - (Baker & Taylor)

Two-time Pulitzer Prize winning Colson Whitehead continues his Harlem saga in a powerful and hugely-entertaining novel that summons 1970s New York in all its seedy glory.

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 county 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. - (Random House, Inc.)

COLSON WHITEHEAD is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of eleven works of fiction and nonfiction, and is a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, for The Nickel Boys and The Underground Railroad, which also won the National Book Award. A recipient of MacArthur and Guggenheim fellowships, he lives in New York City. - (Random House, Inc.)

Booklist Reviews

*Starred Review* Harlem furniture-store owner, family man, and sometimes crook Ray Carney had been keeping it clean. But in 1971, when his daughter begs for tickets to see the Jackson Five, Carney contacts a dirty cop and gets dragged back into the violent underworld. Whitehead continues the ensnaring, ingenious, mordantly funny, and profoundly revelatory crime saga begun in Harlem Shuffle (2021), digging even deeper into the city's corruption, from gang wars to a battle between rival fried-chicken restaurants to alliances among politicians, insurance companies, fixers, and arsonists in the grand racket known as urban renewal. Carney's archly cynical narration alternates with the blunt yet philosophical musings of his cohort Pepper, who tries to abide by his "crook manifesto." Then there's Zippo, shooting scenes for his Blaxploitation flick, Code Name: Nefertiti, at Carney's store and stirring up more trouble. Directing a spectacularly vivid cast that includes motley criminals and Carney's rock-steady wife and sweet kids and nephew, Whitehead tracks various strategies for survival in a city engulfed in fiery chaos. Culminating in 1976, this saturated tale is laced with caustic commentary on everything from the paradoxes Black artists face to the ludicrous commercialization of the Bicentennial. Whitehead captures the menace and the beauty of the city in exhilarating detail within the many-faceted, rollicking plot that propels his second, magnificently vibrant and transcendent Ray Carney novel.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Readers will hunt for any new book by Whitehead, but the newest in his Harlem saga will be sought with particular zeal. Copyright 2023 Booklist Reviews.

Library Journal Reviews

Furniture store owner and ex-fence Ray Carney returns after the sensational Harlem Shuffle, trying to stay on the straight and narrow and not quite succeeding. In 1971, he needs Jackson 5 tickets for his daughter and approaches old police contact Munson, who wants a favor in return. In 1973, Ray's partner-in-crime, Pepper, takes a side job doing security on a Blaxploitation shoot in Harlem and manages to best the hustlers he meets. By 1976, while storeowner Ray finds his way around raging bicentennialism, he asks Pepper to help discover who's behind a fire that injured one of Ray's tenants. Again, Whitehead delivers the portrait of one struggling community and roughed-up but durably endearing 1970s New York. Prepub Alert. Copyright 2023 Library Journal

Library Journal Reviews

Whitehead brings back furniture salesman Ray Carney in this equally ambitious follow-up to Harlem Shuffle, moving the action to the grimy 1970s in a triptych of stories. In the first, Carney, who has gone legit since the events of the first novel, seeks red-hot Jackson 5 tickets for his daughter but soon realizes that the path to Madison Square Garden runs through a corrupt cop. In the second, Carney's associate Pepper works security on a blaxploitation film whose star has gone missing, a darkly amusing story that allows Whitehead to comment on the commodification of Black art. In the final section, set during the Bicentennial celebrations of 1976, Ray and Pepper look for the arsonist who lit up an apartment, introducing a political angle to the novel. As in the first installment of this planned trilogy, Carney lives in a world where everyone is a potential mark and playing it straight is a sucker's game. The real star is Harlem, with troubles that seem more buried than during the tumultuous 1960s but are always a moment's notice from boiling over. VERDICT This isn't the rollicking caper its predecessor was, but it's still a worthy addition to one of the most distinguished oeuvres in modern fiction.—Michael Pucci