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
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.
