The Harlem Charade
“Narrator Bahni Turpin provides complex portraits of this audiobook’s three heroes, the way their lives intersect, and the engaging mystery that unites them…Turpin excels at accents and emotions and at revealing obscured truths about the main characters. She ensures that listeners comprehend the story’s historical figures and quick-paced, suspenseful events. Turpin shows her gifts as she brings together diverse plots, characterizations, and themes. Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.”
AudioFile
Winner of an AudioFile Earphones Award
Watcher. Shadow. Fugitive.
Harlem is home to all kinds of kids. Jin sees life passing her by from the window of her family’s bodega. Alex wants to help the needy one shelter at a time, but he can’t tell anyone who she really is. Elvin is living on Harlem’s cold, lonely streets, surviving on his own after his grandfather was mysteriously attacked.
When these three strangers join forces to find out what happened to Elvin’s grandfather, their digging leads them to an enigmatic artist whose missing masterpieces are worth a fortune—one that might save the neighborhood from development by an ambitious politician who wants to turn it into Harlem World, a ludicrous historic theme park. But if they don’t find the paintings soon, nothing in their beloved neighborhood will ever be the same.
In this remarkable tale of daring and danger, debut novelist Natasha Tarpley explores the way a community defines itself, the power of art to show truth, and what it really means to be home.
Praise