Colson Whitehead, author of powerful novels that graphically detail the history of violence against Black Americans, turns his focus to the history of 1970s New York in “Crook Manifesto,” a sequel to his 2021 “Harlem Shuffle,” set a decade earlier.

His version of Manhattan in the 1970s is a fearful city filled with the smell of arson and the stench of corruption. Returning is the first book’s Ray Carney, owner of a furniture store, a dedicated family man and a former crook. His extra income from fencing stolen valuables enabled him to live in comfort on Harlem’s Strivers’ Row.

When the novel opens in 1971, Carney’s been on the straight-and-narrow for several years, when he’s snared by a character from his past, Munson — a corrupt NYPD detective who’s forcing him to help grab his last big payoff. Carney’s reward is tickets to a Jackson Five concert at Madison Square Garden for his daughter:

“The music was loud, the clothes louder. The Jackson boys capered and twirled in tight costumes with multicolored zigzag patterns. … The guitarist’s red satin applejack hat was big enough to smuggle in a Christmas ham.”

Mr. Whitehead’s fast-moving prose barely contains the scope of his plots which stretch from corrupt government officials to the structure of Harlem’s crime organizations and the arrival of the Black Liberation Army from California. They rob banks and kill police in the scary times of 1971 while Carney focuses on protecting his family and his store.

The novel heads to 1973 and the arrival of blaxploitation movies and counterculture. When a part-time arsonist and fulltime movie-maker named Zippo stages his latest film, “Code Name Nefertiti,” partly in Carney’s store, Mr. Whitehead trots out Hollywood celebrities, drug dealers and a bizarre ventriloquist. It’s a strange scene for the store-owner and a treat for readers.

What’s the film about? “To find life’s meaning in fire and annihilation,” Zippo believes. “The French adored it … and hailed Zippo as a ‘true auteur, a kind of Negro Preminger.’ Zippo didn’t see the comparison but dug the enthusiasm.”

The filming requires the services of Pepper, an all-around criminal handyman and friend of Carney’s who’s hired to guard the equipment. It’s his view of the character of dedicated criminals that gives the book its title: “A man has a hierarchy of crime, of what is morally acceptable and what is not, a crook manifesto.”

Echoes of the television show “The Wire” can be heard in this statement, taken from the character Omar Little, who robs drug dealers: “A man gotta have a code.”

There are also echoes of Walter Mosley’s Easy Rawlins novels in Mr. Whitehead’s book. Rawlins is a Black detective dealing with white Los Angeles, facing the same problems as Carney. He also has a dangerous partner in Mouse, who resembles Pepper.

The third section finds Carney trying to avoid the flag-waving of the country’s Bicentennial and the political efforts of his wife Elizabeth who is campaigning for a family friend, Alexander Oates, a candidate for Manhattan Borough president.

“Summer in New York that bicentennial year was full of promise and menace in every sign and wonder, no matter how crummy or small.”

Fires still consume tenements, occupied or empty, part of a scheme to make money for developers and New York officials, writes Mr. Whitehead. Developers torch their buildings, collect the insurance then bribe politicians to buy the vacant lots for “redevelopment.”

When a boy is severely burned in an arson, Carney decides to seek a kind of revenge. Unfortunately, it centers on Oates. Enlisting Pepper in his plan, the pair opens a door to the violent world of New York’s underbelly where no crook manifesto exists.

Mr. Whitehead’s complex and sometimes confusing story takes a few disturbing turns when Carney and Pepper encounter opponents fiercer than they are. Part Three is violent and hopeless in turn, yet compelling reading that’s hard to put down.

“Crook Manifesto” swirls with clever cultural references recreating those tough years in New York, especially for African Americans. Whitehead delivers a novel that seldom flags in its momentum to tell an important story about America’s past.

Bob Hoover is the retired book editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

First Published: July 23, 2023, 1:01 p.m.