“Ray Carney was only slightly bent when it came to being crooked…” To his customers and neighbours on 125th street, Carney is an upstanding salesman of reasonably priced furniture, making a decent life for himself and his family. He and his wife Elizabeth are expecting their second child, and if her parents don’t approve of him or their cramped apartment across from the subway tracks, it’s still home.
Cash is tight, especially with all those instalment-plan sofas, so if his cousin Freddie occasionally drops off the odd ring or necklace, Ray doesn’t ask where it comes from. He knows a discreet jeweller downtown who doesn’t ask questions, either.
Then his cousin Freddie falls in with a crew who plan to rob the “Waldorf of Harlem” and volunteers Ray’s services as the fence. The heist doesn’t go as planned; they rarely do. Thus begins the internal tussle between Ray the striver and Ray the crook.
Harlem Shuffle’s ingenious story plays out in a beautifully recreated New York City 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.
CardiffRead 
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