B>From two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author Colson Whitehead, a gloriously entertaining novel of heists, shakedowns, and rip-offs set in Harlem in the 1960s./b>br>br>Ray Carney was only slightly bent when it came to being crooked...br>br>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.br>br>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.br>br>See, cash is tight, especially with all those installment-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 jeweler downtown who also doesn''t ask questions. br>br>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