Two time Pulitzer Prize winner @ColsonWhitehead is a national treasure. When you are inside his pages, you are reminded of why over and over
Sarah Jessica Parker, via Instagram
Freewheeling fun . . . The Harlem Trilogy, like its hero, is a cool-headed trickster, more ambitious and far-reaching than its dimestore façade would suggest . . . He takes a dark and dangerous corner of history and makes it feel illuminated, maginified, even borderline family-friendly . . . the grit and grandeur of 80s New York drive this rollicking story of an underground wheeler-dealer
Guardian, Book of the Day
Drugs, rap and Reaganomics: Colson Whitehead's trilogy ends with a bang . . . In its totality the trilogy is far more than a series of capers. It is Whitehead's most sustained attempt to capture his native city - or, as he describes it, 'a monstrous entity powered by innate miseries, operated by brute will, and held together by pluck, fury and rebar' . . . Taken together, the books amount to a street-level social history of modern New York told through fences, gangsters, hookers, politicians, landlords, developers and dreamers - a Dickensian gallery of rogues through whom an entire metropolis comes into view
Sunday Times
The novel, a nostalgic trip through 1980s street culture, is full of juice, from the heist-driven plot to the pinballing dialogue to the indelible portrait of New York and of Carney too - surely one of the richest creations in crime fiction. Cracking
Daily Mail
With echoes of Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin and the blaxploitation movie Shaft, Cool Machine showcases a novelist at the height of his craft, working with cerebral glee, virtuosity and an abundance of love. Whitehead's Harlem Trilogy deserves to become a touchstone of the modern American literary canon
Spectator
There is a pleasing symmetry to the trilogy: three books spanning three decades, each divided into three episodes (part Divine Comedy, part Star Wars). In a recent profile in the New Yorker, Julian Lucas argued that there are three Whiteheads in the public imagination: the Gen X ironist, the New York City rhapsodist and the great American reckoner. They're all on the job in Cool Machine, wisecracking and safe-cracking their way through its pages. It's a literary heist that none of the author's alter egos could have pulled off alone: a three-man job
Times Literary Supplement
Carney is a perfect crime-fiction character because he straddles two worlds, neither entirely bent nor entirely straight . . . the trilogy's subject is not really Carney: it is New York, in all its filthy, frenetic, shabby glory . . . New York has never had a better valentine
Economist
Readers with an appetite for noir fiction and stylishly exuberant storytelling are rewarded with an atmospheric, stylish finale . . . Whitehead brings 1980s New York to vivid, unforgettable life
Independent, Novel of the month
A hugely satisfying conclusion to a towering achievement . . . this trilogy of unapologetic crime novels may be Whitehead's most important and affecting work yet
Financial Times
It's about Harlem in the '80s. Colson Whitehead wrote three books about Harlem, one in the '60s, one in the '70s, and this is the last one. You do not need to have read the other two. Colson Whitehead is the best there is, period
Ann Patchett
The conclusion to Whitehead's Harlem trilogy finds the furniture salesman Ray Carney and his partner in crime, Pepper, navigating midlife, a changing city and, as always, a dubious scheme or two
New York Times, The Novels Everyone Will Be Reading This Summer
Two-time Pulitzer winner and the author of Oprah's 75th Book Club pick The Underground Railroad closes out his Harlem Trilogy with a swaggering trip through early '80s New York . . . Add old ghosts, bigger risks, and a city turning glossy and ruthless, and you've got Whitehead at his best
Oprah Daily, The 24 Best Books of 2026
Colson Whitehead is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of eleven works of fiction and nonfiction, and is a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, for The Nickel Boys and The Underground Railroad, which also won the National Book Award. A recipient of MacArthur and Guggenheim fellowships, he lives in New York City.
'Rejoice: the final instalment of the Harlem Trilogy is here' TELEGRAPH
'A hugely satisfying conclusion to a towering achievement' FINANCIAL TIMES
'Another tour de force . . . Whitehead's Harlem trilogy deserves to become a touchstone of the modern American literary canon' SPECTATOR
FROM THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR AND TWO-TIME PULITZER PRIZE WINNER COLSON WHITEHEAD
AN EXUBERANTLY ENTERTAINING NOVEL THAT BRINGS 1980S NEW YORK TO VIVID, UNFORGETTABLE LIFE
1981. New York City is beginning to emerge from financial ruin and decline, energized by rampant real estate development and a Wall Street unchained by Reagan-era predatory capitalism. Up in Harlem, successful business owner/master fence Ray Carney has just been named Sterling Furniture's Dealer of the Month. When the banks won't give his beloved wife, Elizabeth, a loan for her new travel agency, however, Carney gambles on one last heist, and finds himself entangled with a legendary criminal mastermind.
1983. To some, Carney's friend and partner in crime Pepper is a stone-cold sociopath. To others, a top thief with questionable people skills. Either way, he's feeling his age in his troubled gut and his aching bones. When he takes on a bodyguard gig as a favor to Elizabeth, he's plunged into the alien territory of the East Village art and club scene. Luckily for him, whether you're uptown or down, everyone speaks the same language of violence - Pepper is a native speaker.
1986. Carney has always been haunted by his inability to save his cousin Freddie. Now, twenty years after Freddie's death, he has a chance to rescue Freddie's son from the violent forces of the city. But coming out of retirement and teaming up with Pepper again will mean risking the safety and security he's spent decades building for his family, with only one shot to get it right.
With his usual pitch-perfect prose, Whitehead paints a portrait of a city in transition, where shimmering skyscrapers rise to the heavens as displaced people huddle in abandoned tunnels below. In a dazzling display of protean imagination, Cool Machine roves all over the city, from Windows on the World to Sugar Hill, to show that in New York, and in the lives of Whitehead's vivid characters, it's what's below the surface that reveals the truth.
'Surely one of the richest creations in crime fiction. Cracking' DAILY MAIL
'Colson Whitehead's trilogy ends with a bang' SUNDAY TIMES
'An atmospheric, stylish finale'INDEPENDENT, BOOK OF THE MONTH
'New York, in all its filthy, frenetic, shabby glory . . . New York has never had a better valentine' THE ECONOMIST
'A triumph of molls, dolls and deadpan humour' STANDARD
'Masterly' MAIL ON SUNDAY
'A literary heist' TLS
'Freewheeling fun' GUARDIAN
'Bustling with energy . . . a whirlwind read' IRISH INDEPENDENT REVIEW
