To his customers and neighbours on 125th street Ray 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 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 all the time. Cash is tight
especially with all those installment-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 jeweler
downtown who doesn't ask questions either. 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. Now Ray has a new clientele one made up of shady
cops vicious local gangsters two-bit pornographers and other assorted Harlem lowlifes. Thus
begins the internal tussle between Ray the striver and Ray the crook. As Ray navigates this
double life he begins to see 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'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.
