Long White Con

Long White Con is a crime novel by the American writer Iceberg Slim, published in paperback by Holloway House. It continues the story that began in his earlier novel Trick Baby.

Johnny O'Brien is known to the trade as White Folks, and the name is the whole trick: the son of a Black mother and a white father, he can pass for white, which makes him useful in a confidence game where the mark has to be persuaded that he is dealing with an equal. Blue Howard, the older hustler who raised him and taught him the business, is dead by the time this book opens, and Johnny leaves for Canada with his skills sharpened and no interest in working for pocket money any more.

What he wants now is the long con, the patient swindle that takes weeks to set up and pays out enough to be worth the risk. The novel follows him as he puts together a gang of grifters and moves between identities, cities and marks, and it keeps the street-level knowledge of its author at the front of the story.