Last call in Harlem: Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner wraps up his crime trilogy with Cool Machine

Advertisement 1 This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Breadcrumb Trail Links HomeBooks Last call in Harlem: Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner wraps up his crime trilogy with Cool Machine Colson Whitehead will be at Bella Concert Hall on Sept. 15 for a Wordfest event Author of the article: By Eric Volmers Published Sep 10, 2026 Last updated 7 hours ago 6 minute read Join the conversation Author Colson Whitehead. Photo by Chris Close. Article content In the final story of Colson Whitehead’s new novel, Cool Machine, there is a paragraph describing a restaurant on 125th Street in Harlem. Article content It is 1986 and Ray Carney, an increasingly respected furniture salesman who occasionally sidelines as a fence for stolen property, has again been pulled back into the criminal underworld. This time, it’s to help out his nephew Robert, who has inadvertently become involved in a murder tied to municipal corruption. Article content Article content Article content Carney feels honour-bound to help Robert because he is the son of his doomed cousin Freddie, whose death 20 years ago still haunts him. He is not thrilled to be pulled into a murder plot, but he is even less pleased with Robert’s choice of restaurant for a secret meeting. Whitehead describes it as a “punishingly lit second-rate pizza joint with a signed picture of Jerry Orbach on the wall.” Even worse, it sells subpar pizza that “exhibited low structural integrity when folded and thirty seconds after hitting the paper plate bled out orange grease like a gunshot body on a Saturday night sidewalk.” Article content Noon News Roundup Your weekday lunchtime roundup of curated links, news highlights, analysis and features. Sign Up By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Interested in more newsletters? Browse here. Article content At first glance, this might seem like a bit of a throwaway snippet, a chance for Whitehead to show off the razor-sharp, crime-fiction wordplay he has mastered over three books in his Harlem trilogy. When asked about it during an interview with Postmedia, Whitehead says he was simply describing a typical spot in that area of the city. Article content “A picture of Jerry Orbach on the wall is a common sight in coffee shops and pizza places,” says Whitehead, who will be at Calgary’s Bella Concert Hall on Sept. 15 for a Wordfest event. “If you stop in for a slice and you’re the headshot,…