Cool Machine picks up the story in the 1980s, when Carney is winding down his side criminal side hustle. As with Harlem Shuffle and Crook Manifesto, Cool Machine unfolds across three interlocking stories spanning different years. In novels such as the Pulitzer prize-winning The Underground Railroad (2016), Whitehead established himself as a master of historical fiction. While the plot and pace are uneven across the three parts of Cool Machine, Whitehead’s evident enjoyment of the form carries this fitting conclusion to his trilogy, which is a superlative contemporary New York novel. —><img src=”https://counter.theconversation.com/content/286906/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic” alt=”The Conversation” width=”1” height=”1” style=”border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important” referrerpolicy=”no-referrer-when-downgrade” /><!— End of code.