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 centre 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 a more 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 out of 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 is 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 18^th 2023.  Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the advance review copy.