Crook Manifesto

Whether in high literary form or entertaining, page-turner mode, the man is simply incapable of writing a bad book -- Ian Williams * Guardian * In Whitehead's second crime novel, Harlem's Ray Carney is once again a striving African American businessman and father trying to get ahead while sticking to the straight and narrow, a path that continually eludes him * Oprah Daily * Whitehead has a talent for creating ambiguous, complex scenes that fix in your memory * Evening Standard * Colson Whitehead is one of the most talented storytellers in contemporary fiction, and watching him switch his approach and flex new muscles is a wildly entertaining reading experience * Los Angeles Review of Books * As usual, when he moves into a new genre, he keeps the bones but does his own decorating * Washington Post * Whitehead's gift for sudden, often grotesque eruptions of violence is omnipresent, so much so that you almost feel squeamish to recognize this book for the accomplished, streamlined, and darkly funny comedy of manners it is . . . It's not just crime fiction at its craftiest, but shrewdly rendered social history * Kirkus, STARRED REVIEW * 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. Readers will hunt for any new book by Whitehead, but the newest in his Harlem saga will be sought with particular zeal * Booklist * Literary titan Whitehead's Harlem Shuffle is one of the best New York novels in recent memory, one of those books one doesn't want to end, so it's a real treat to have a sequel * Publishers Weekly, Best Summer Reads * As well as being funny, effortlessly streetwise and criminally pleasurable to read it's also politically enlightening and quietly incendiary -- Jane Graham * Big Issue *