Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead

HARLEM SHUFFLE by two-time Pulitzer Prize winning author Colson Whitehead is worth a look  - it was chosen for the September 2021 LibraryReads list and is an Amazon Best Book for the month, too. Departing from his previous works (including The Underground Railroad and The Intuitionist, both of which have been assigned for classroom reading), Whitehead has now crafted a mystery story set in 1960s Harlem. The main character is the self-made furniture retailer Ray Carney who tries to stay straight, but gets caught up in a world of heists and double-crosses. For me there were so many elements which were reminiscent of Blacktop Wasteland (which I REALLY enjoyed) that I had a harder time than expected of getting into Whitehead’s latest work.  No such difficulty for professional reviewers, though – HARLEM SHUFFLE received starred reviews from Booklist, Kirkus, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly.