Review Books: They Drive by Night | James Curtis

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Published: 27 November 2008

Stories from the City and tales from the underground

They Drive By Night. By James Curtis. London Books £11.99
Night And The City. By Gerald Kersh. London Books £11.99

JAMES Curtis was a figure known in the pubs along Kilburn High Road, always happy to pass the time of day over a pint, and earning a living as a school caretaker.
But few who raised a pint with him in the 1950s and 1960s will have known he was a successful author before the war – a man whose novels illuminated the seedy world of Camden and Westminster in the 1930s. His books, long out of print, are available again. Independent publishers London Books focus on finding and reprinting some of the 20th-century’s forgotten masterpieces: they issued to great acclaim Curtis’s The Gilt Kid last year.
Now they have followed it up with They Drive By Night. Written in 1938, it tells the story of a murder committed in Drummond Street, Euston – and how an ex-convict is wrongly accused of the crime.
Its popularity when it was first published was helped by a successful film adaptation, starring Ernest Thesiger, brother of the travel writer Wilfrid Thesiger.
London Books have also released Night And The City by Gerald Kersh. It offers another glimpse into the West End between the wars. Kersh wrote 19 novels but before becoming an author he worked in a number of jobs – all of which provided experiences he turned into copy. He was a West End cinema manager, a cook and a minder and even spent time sleeping rough.
Night and The City tells the story of Harry Fabian – wide boy, pimp and wrestling promoter who stalks the seedy bars and clubs of Soho. It works as a snapshot of the days that made Soho’s reputation – and recreates the flavour of the area in the early part of the 20th century.
Dan Carrier

• They Drive By Night. By James Curtis. London Books £11.99
• Night And The City. By Gerald Kersh. London Books £11.99

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