Luminous, nuanced ... Whitaker’s book kicks off with a spellbinding account of the lead-up to Malcolm’s assassination ... A sumptuous, essential book that draws us to the real man while acknowledging him as somehow unknowable, an American sphinx.
Whitaker explores both in alternating chapters, looking at the events surrounding the assassination, then broadening the scope to examine the lives Malcolm touched and all that he inspired. While the murder investigation is a cautionary tale of justice delayed and denied, it is the cultural debates that form the book.
