Harlem Shuffle

FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD (Now a major Amazon Prime TV show)

'Dazzling' Guardian

'Gloriously entertaining' Evening Standard

'A rich, wild book' New York Times

'Ray Carney was only slightly bent when it came to being crooked...'

To his customers and neighbors on 125th street, Carney is an upstanding
salesman of reasonably-priced furniture, making a life for himself and his
family. He and his wife Elizabeth are expecting their second child, and if her
parents on Striver's Row don't approve of him or their cramped apartment
across from the subway tracks, it's still home.

Few people know he descends from a line of uptown hoods and crooks, and that
his façade of normalcy has more than a few cracks in it. Cracks that are
getting bigger and bigger all the time.

See, cash is tight, especially with all those instalment plan sofas, so if his
cousin Freddie occasionally drops off the odd ring or necklace at the
furniture store, Ray doesn't see the need to ask where it comes from. He knows
a discreet jeweller downtown who also doesn't ask questions.

Then Freddie falls in with a crew who plan to rob the Hotel Theresa - the
'Waldorf of Harlem' - and volunteers Ray's services as the fence. The heist
doesn't go as planned; they rarely do, after all. Now Ray has to cater to a
new clientele, one made up of shady cops on the take, vicious minions of the
local crime lord, and numerous other Harlem lowlifes.

Thus begins the internal tussle between Ray the striver and Ray the crook. As
Ray navigates this double life, he starts to see the truth about who actually
pulls the strings in Harlem. Can Ray avoid getting killed, save his cousin,
and grab his share of the big score, all while maintaining his reputation as
the go-to source for all your quality home furniture needs?

Harlem Shuffle is driven by an ingeniously intricate plot that plays out in a
beautifully recreated Harlem of the early 1960s. It's a family saga
masquerading as a crime novel, a hilarious morality play, a social novel about
race and power, and ultimately a love letter to Harlem.