Reviews with content warning for Gun violence - Crook Manifesto

Reviews tagging 'Gun violence'

Crook Manifesto by Colson Whitehead

9 reviews

fkshg8465's review against another edition

dark emotional sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

I DNF’d the first book (Harlem Shuffle). So I should've known better than to pick it up. I get why it’s on must-read lists, but this author really doesn’t do much for me, Pulitzer or not. I’ve got to stop trying to like his works!

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isabelsophiex's review

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Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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bookishevy's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Crook Manifesto consists of three stories set in Harlem.

1971 - Crime in the city is at an all-time high, and the Black Liberation Army is giving the NYPD a run for their money. Ray Carney has been out of the moving goods around business and is trying to keep is head down while running his furniture store until his teen daughter May asks for Jackson 5 tickets that are hard to come by. So, Carney contacts his old friend, crooked cop Munson. Of course, Munson wants Carney to do him a little favor for the tickets. And just like that, Carney is back in the game.

1973 - Pepper, Carney's violent friend, gets a side job as a security guard on a Blaxploitation movie shoot in Harlem because putting together a crew for various felonies is getting harder. On top of the usual thieves and murderers, Pepper finds himself in the company of actors, comedians , and celebrity drug dealers, all of whom try his patience to their regret.

1976 - Harlem is literally on fire while the country prepares for its Bicentennial celebrations. Carney is trying to come up with a good July 4th ad. His wife Elizabeth is campaigning for her childhood friend Alexander Oakes, a shady former D.A. and rising politician Carney can't stand. When one of Carney's tenants is severely burned in a fire, he hires Pepper to find out who set it. Carney has his suspicions.

This is the second book in Whitehead's Harlem Trilogy, and, just like the first, the stories are fast-paced, and the characters are colorful. I can tell that Whitehead is a fan of caper movies just by the language. The men in these stories are so on the down low that it's almost like they're speaking in code to one another. A manifesto this is because there are a lot of flashbacks to jobs being done and with, or to whom. It really made me wonder about all the vice that go down in a city that us regular folks have no idea about. It was great having an inside look at the violence and corruption.

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