Ray Carney is in trouble again. The character first appeared in Colson Whitehead’s 2021 novel, Harlem Shuffle, as a reluctant fence and co-conspirator in a major heist. Ray just wants to grow his furniture business and love his wife. In the sequel, Crook Manifesto (2023), Ray is shanghaied into the pension scheme of a crooked cop out to rip off every criminal he knows before he disappears forever.

Cool Machine completes the trilogy. Whitehead’s new novel begins in 1981. Even more prosperous than before, Ray is caught in the middle of a feud between a pair of master thieves, Buzz Caldera and Harlem legend Uncle Rich. When Buzz pressures Ray to get to Uncle Rich, Ray is obliged to join Uncle Rich’s gang of thieves until Buzz can be dealt with. Will he make it out in one piece? Yes, he will. This is no spoiler: resolving jeopardy is a somewhat perfunctory affair in Whitehead’s Harlem trilogy. Often, Ray just stands there while others resolve jeopardy around him. 

In the second section, set in 1983, an acquaintance of Ray’s wife is in New York to buy a traditional Ngil mask of Gabonian origin and feels some muscle would allay his concerns about the shady deal. Enter Pepper: enforcer, problem-solver and close friend of the Carneys. When the deal