Colson Whitehead, like a taxi in the New York night – Libération

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Started in 2021 with Harlem ShuffleColson Whitehead’s trilogy continues without fail with the Rule of Crime. She leaves the sixties for 1971, still in New York, more precisely in Harlem, in the company of Ray Carney, a furniture salesman with a past as a fence. Ray decided to turn the page, become a good husband, a good father and an honest business owner. He is the king of the comfortable sofa and the quality armchair which attracts deserving retirees for the warrior’s rest. But he can’t refuse anything to his daughter who wants to attend the Jackson Five concert and begs her dad, who knows “of the world», to find places. Carney will reconnect with a white cop, Munson, a first-level schemer. Of course, the troubles start again, the past comes rushing back with Pepper the scammer henchman already present in the first part of the series. Shenanigans, lies, heists and crazy nights, but also star kidnapping and political affairs, it is through three incendiary parts that the novelist cuts his fiction with a scalpel and punches in the stomach.

Bushy without being confusing, this Crime rule speeds like a taxi in the New York night. There is a lot of noise, fire sirens, machine gun fire and Colson Whitehead takes everyone on board like in the cinema with heroes who are far from being flamboyant but carried by some really rhythmic dialogues. By refusing to forget the slightest detail of the period, Colson Whitehead feeds his reader to the point of stuffing him with descriptions. We smell the scents of fried fish and goulash restaurants, the musty smells after too long a game of poker, the perfumes of prostitutes and actresses sprayed with fake Chanel Number 5. But he also knows how to nourish all of this with political and relentless social forces like the Black Panthers, arson and the Blackploitation industry, without ever putting us to sleep. Mischievous and cultured, he slips in humor, making reference to Chester Himes, his master of crime fiction. He owes everything to the Série Noire and how right he is.

The rule of crime, Colson Whitehead, translated from the American by Charles Recoursé, Albin Michel, 450 pp, €22.90