Baker completes his New York trilogy (Dreamland; Paradise Alley) with a penetrating look at World War II-era Harlem. The fictional Jonah Dove is heir to one of Harlem's great churches but is unable to emerge from his famous father's shadow; the historical Malcolm Little is caught in a cycle of petty crime and drugs but will soon discover Islam and his role as a political leader under the name of Malcolm X. Drawing heavily on The Autobiography of Malcolm X and other biographical sources, Baker's novel turns an icon into a living, breathing character full of contradiction and desperation. Jonah, the descendant of Paradise Alley's Dove family, struggles with his desire to pass for white and the contradictory desire to come into his own as a great preacher. As with Baker's previous titles, here fictional and historical characters rub elbows, and the true protagonist is New York City itself, replete with lowlifes, politicians, and hard-working individuals, a swirl of ethnicities and simmering tensions ready to detonate at any given moment. This fine historical series belongs in most fiction collections. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 10/15/05.]-Andrea Kempf, Johnson Cty. Community Coll. Lib., Overland Park, KS (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Following the intricate yet gripping novels Dreamland 0 (1999) and Paradise0 Alley 0 (2002), Baker offers the last and equally compelling installment of his City of Fire series, which is set during critical periods in the history of New York City. But the true significance of the trilogy lies in its transcendence. Regardless of the novels' setting in the nation's megalopolis, what the characters experience, and the cultural trends that define and shape those experiences, reflects the trends and conditions in the country at large. In his new novel, Baker tracks within the robust atmosphere of 1940s Harlem two separate paths toward personal empowerment taken by two black men with very different backgrounds. As usual for Baker, he mixes actual historical figures with fictional ones: in this case, Malcolm Little, a young man who knew only poverty and hardship growing up in Michigan and fled to Harlem to find the opportunity to improve his life--and became Malcolm X; and Jonah Dove, a Harlem preacher (in Baker's endnotes, he reveals that Jonah is an "amalgam of Harlem ministers, past and present") who was raised in privilege, sent to college, and bears the advantage and disadvantage of being light enough to pass as white. With considerable historical knowledge and narrative fluidity, Baker renders their conflicts and choices as paradigmatic of the situations in which blacks found themselves during that era before the civil rights movement began in full. --Brad Hooper Copyright 2005 Booklist

Played out against the backdrop of Harlem in 1943, this generally engaging, sometimes dense third novel from Baker (following the bestselling Dreamland and Paradise Alley) reimagines the early days of Malcolm Little-the man who became Malcolm X. As depicted by Baker, the young Malcolm is quick-witted, eager, reckless and impulsive, but also sensitive and possessing a strong sense of justice. These qualities lead to a chance encounter in which he helps Jonah Dove (the Dove family is familiar from Paradise Alley), a young Harlem minister who is struggling with his own demons as the fair-skinned leader of a black church that has not truly embraced him, despite his being the only son of the church's much-beloved founder; Dove's unfolding story (including his struggles with passing) deepens Malcolm's. The book stays within what's already known about Malcolm X's early adulthood, but Baker covers the territory carefully. He also thoroughly captures the figures (Adam Clayton Powell Jr., West Indian Archie, the Collyer brothers, etc.) and micropolitical climate of wartime Harlem: munitions factories have brought jobs to the struggling community, but low wages, rationing, racial hostilities and an increasing military and police presence makes for possibly explosive combinations. When these tensions do reach the breaking point, Baker lends the resulting fray a visceral reality. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved