Crook Manifesto- A Novel by Colson Whitehead

2.5 (4)
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Web ID: 17302198

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! 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 1970's 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.

  • Product Features

    • Suggested age range- Adult
    • Format- Hardcover
    • Dimensions- 6.3" W x 9.1" H x 1.4" D
    • Genre- Fiction
    • Publisher- Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, Publication date- 07-18-2023
    • Page count- 336
    • ISBN- 9780385545150
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Ratings & Reviews

2.5/5

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2 years ago
from Ohio

Difficult Read

Hard to read sentences that never start, and some run on forever. Three word titles amid paragraphs. Proofread? Giving it one more try, but may not make a chapter.

Customer review from barnesandnoble.com

2 years ago
from FL

Left me ambivalent

Crook Manifesto By Colson Whitehead I am not sure how I feel about Mr. Whitehead's books. Some I have liked – like "The Nickel Boys". Others not so much. This book falls in the second category. The story here deals with Harlem "businessmen" in the 1970s. It seems that everyone doing business in Harlem at the time was only moderately successful at best in legitimate pursuits, or anywhere from hugely successful to failures as gangsters. Most seem to have dipped into both the legal and illegal sides of things. Everyone was a crook – including the cops. This book seems to glorify the strong (ie gangsters and cops) preying on the poor people living and working in the area – and often on each other! What the book conveyed to me was that the author really didn't see much wrong with the way things went down. He almost seemed to admire the way his characters took advantage of each other. Oh well, it's just business as usual. Everything from graft to drugs to prostitution to murder to arson seem to be just the cost of doing business. I'm not sure this is the message Mr. Whitehead was aiming to send, but it was how this book came across to me.

Customer review from barnesandnoble.com

2 years ago
from Florida

Just OK

i found it a trudge to parse the jargon and slang, so after several tries, i gave up after the first section. harlem shuffle was good, but this one seems just so so. loved his other books.

Customer review from barnesandnoble.com

2 years ago
from Eastport, NY

A Sequel That Soars

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.

Recommends this product

Customer review from barnesandnoble.com