{"product_id":"cool-machine","title":"Cool Machine","description":"\u003cp\u003eby Colson Whitehead\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDoubleday Books\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e7\/21\/2026, hardcover\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSKU: 9780385550505\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNEW YORK TIMES \u003c\/i\u003eBESTSELLER - From #1 \u003ci\u003eNew York Times \u003c\/i\u003ebestselling author and two-time Pulitzer winner Colson Whitehead, an exuberantly entertaining novel that brings to life 1980s New York in the magnificent final volume of his Harlem Trilogy\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e1981. 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e1983. 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e1986. 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWith 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, \u003ci\u003eCool Machine\u003c\/i\u003e roves all over the city, from Windows on the World to the Meadowlands, 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReviews:\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Whitehead's justly celebrated Harlem Trilogy comes to a triumphant, satisfying conclusion.... [Packs] three page-turning thrillers into one book that's sustained throughout by rich, engaging characterizations and lucid, provocative reflections on a community, a city, and a people which it presents as both exasperating and captivating with equal intensity. A master novelist in full command of his powers as a storyteller, prose stylist, and social observer.\" \u003ci\u003e-- Kirkus Reviews \u003c\/i\u003e(starred review)\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Electrifying.... A glorious fusion of crime, rebel creativity, and metaphysics.... Every page is incandescent with longing, doubts, calculations, and determination as Whitehead's magnetic characters are pushed to the limits and the city roils. Whitehead gets every gritty, absurd, tender detail just right as he maps the eighties zeitgeist and its foreshadowing of our own, revealing an immense web of malfeasance. This is a masterwork of crime fiction infused with labyrinthine suspense; brilliant, witty, and dynamic social insights; and profound questions of survival.\"\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e-- Booklist \u003c\/i\u003e(starred review)\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Whitehead concludes his Harlem Trilogy with a transcendent and wildly entertaining novel in which his recurring characters grapple with the ways their lives are defined by crime and the city they call home.... The heists, stakeouts, and showdowns are rendered with grit and precision, but the real wallops come in breathtaking riffs on the city's magnetic force.... It's the greatest New York novel in years.\"\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e-- Publishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e (starred review)\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAbout the Author:\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eColson Whitehead\u003c\/strong\u003e is the #1 \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestselling author of twelve works of fiction and nonfiction, including \u003cem\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/burningbooks.com\/products\/harlem-shuffle-1\" title=\"Harlem Shuffle\"\u003eHarlem Shuffle\u003c\/a\u003e \u003c\/em\u003eand \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/burningbooks.com\/products\/crook-manifesto-a-novel-1\" title=\"Crook Manifesto\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eCrook Manifesto\u003c\/em\u003e \u003c\/a\u003eand is a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, for \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/burningbooks.com\/products\/the-nickel-boys\" title=\"The Nickel Boys\"\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Nickel Boys\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e and \u003ci\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/burningbooks.com\/products\/underground-railroad\" title=\"The Underground Railroad\"\u003eThe Underground Railroad\u003c\/a\u003e, \u003c\/i\u003e which also won the National Book Award. A recipient of MacArthur and Guggenheim fellowships, he lives in New York City. \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Burning Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52654721761563,"sku":"Cool Machine","price":30.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0466\/5121\/files\/7152BofVnpL._SL1500.jpg?v=1785446894","url":"https:\/\/burningbooks.com\/products\/cool-machine","provider":"Burning Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}