Whitehead writes so well. Ray Carney's character is believable, tragic and resilient. ( )

Damn, he just keeps getting better!

In this sequel to Harlem Shuffle, we find the characters a bit older, a bit wiser and more jaded. Fantastic sneak peek into the 70s era in Harlem, with forays into Blaxploitation films, and politics and corruption in NYC.

I still love Carney, but in this book, Pepper is my favorite character! ( )

Took me a bit to get through, more world-weary, less sharp then I expected.

I ended up not liking Carney very much - a good way to avoid criminal violence is to, you know, not be a criminal. ( )

This is really three novellas in one, all set in Harlem in the 1970s. The first story picks up a few years after the previous book, Harlem Shuffle, left off. Ray Carney is prospering: his furniture store is doing well, his wife and kids are thriving, and his profitable criminal enterprises stay under the radar. His daughter wants tickets to see The Jackson Five when they come to town, so Carney asks Munsen, a corrupt cop, if he has any. Munsen asks Carney to join him for what at first seems to be simple errand, but turns into a wild night. The second story is about Zippo, a minor character from the first novel who is now a filmmaker, making Blackspoitation flicks in Harlem, including scenes shot in Carney's furniture store. In the third story, Carney is upset to learn that the child of one of his tenants was injured when an abandoned building was burned down. He knows that abandoned buildings are often torched for insurance money, and is determined to track down the arsonist.

What holds these three novellas loosely together is that several characters reappear in all of them - mostly Carney - and they all portray the culture, crime, and politics of Harlem in the 1970s. Whitehead's writing is excellent, the characters are vivid, and the portrayal of Harlem feels very real. I'm looking forward to the third book in the trilogy, and would love to see these made into a TV series. ( )

It is the early 1970s and Harlem has become a microcosm for the crime, corruption, racism, and decay that besets all of New York City. Ray Carney, prominent owner of a local furniture store and reformed small-time criminal, is trying his best to keep his path straight and narrow. That proves difficult, however, as his financial needs and circumstances change. In Crook Manifesto, author Colson Whitehead continues his exploration of Ray’s shady and legitimate exploits from about a decade earlier as chronicled in Harlem Shuffle. In this sequel, we see Ray involved in three different capers, each separated in time by a few years and told in the form of three distinct novellas. In the first, Ray gets deeply involved with a crooked cop to obtain tickets to a Jackson 5 concert. In the second, Ray enlists his friend and criminal colleague Pepper to help track down a movie starlet missing from the set of a blaxploitation film. The final event then sees Ray and Pepper bending the law to uncover the source of a politically connected arson ring that is ravaging the area and threatening a lot of lives.

I enjoyed reading this book, perhaps even more than its predecessor. The two volumes are similar in a lot of ways—the crimes committed never really rise to the “thriller” level as the author chooses to spend more time building the portraits of his main characters and reconstructing what life was like in Harlem half a century ago—and both are centered on Ray. In Crook Manifesto, though, Pepper’s character is developed to a far greater extent than in the earlier book; here, he is the main focus of the second novella and gets equal billing in the third. That is a refreshing change because, as compelling as Ray’s backstory is (including his shaky upbringing and present-day family life), I found Pepper to be a much more interesting personality. Whitehead’s language often sparkles throughout the novel, particularly in the third section which comes close to page-turner status. If I had a complaint—and I am not sure I do—it would be that the scores of minor characters that the author injects become a distraction as very few are integral parts of Ray’s or Pepper’s (or Harlem’s) story. Still, this is engaging fiction from a talented writer and I am already looking forward to the next volume in the trilogy. ( )