“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 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.

on bc table

I finished this book this morning after stop start reading for the last three weeks, mainly due to the silly season at the Bowls Club.
I quite enjoyed it, even though characters were not fully fleshed out and there seemed to be gaps in the story. A fair bit of luck for the very shady double life led by Ray Carney, furniture retailer and jewellery fence.
I was interested to read about life in Harlem in the 60’s, I remember a visit there in the early 70’s when all the cars were huge and shiny and all the buildings were run-down with broken windows. It felt quite dangerous for white people then, and we never got out of our car to see anything beyond the streetscape.
This part of the review pretty well sums up the book -
“Harlem Shuffle’s ingenious story plays out in a beautifully recreated New York City of the early 1960’s. 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”.
Off to a new reader from the Aussie Wishlist tag game now.

Off on a trip to fulfill an Aussie Wishlist tag.
To the finder of this book -
Please let me and previous readers know it is in safe hands by journalling that you have caught it; you are under no obligation to read it.
Bookcrossing is completely free and anonymous and members have been releasing books all over the world for more than 20 years.
If you choose to become a member you will also be able to follow this book’s future story.

Thanks my friend I also received The Nickle Boys today from Canada so I am going to have a great time reading two Colson Whitehead books, I hope they are as good as The Underground Railroad.

Posting today a Wishlist tag.
An entertaining look at Harlam life through the trials and tribulations of a furniture salesman and fence in the 1960s.

Received a wishlist book by post today from New Zealand. Thankyou :)

This is a DNF for me unfortunately. I gave it 50 pages but with too many books waiting life is too short to go on.

Releasing via Australia Post for Australasian Wishlist Tag games.

thankyou so much for sending me this wishlist title - it was on several of those end of year book lists and i thought it might be interesting.... so we shall see when i get to it (in about 400 years hahahaa)

thanks
happy reading
;)