Night And The City

by Gerald Kersh

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Attractive, charming Harry Fabian wants to make a financial killing by revolutionising London’s sporting landscape. Pushy, scheming Harry is the wide boy who never sleeps, making promises he can’t keep to dangerous and powerful people. Slimy, vicious Harry preys on those innocent citizens who accidentally wander into his orbit, sucking them dry. Welcome to 1930s London, where the wealthy gravitate to Soho nightclubs and cellars to drink to excess, to fornicate with dancing girls, and to rub shoulders with guttersnipes and villains.

 

This classic slice of British Noir fiction guides us into a version of Dante’s Inferno, where the nine circles of Hell are all present and accounted for in the West End. For sculptor Adam it is a place of limbo until he can make his way in the real world. Good-time girls Vi, Helen and Zoe are victims of lust, gluttony and greed at the Silver Fox club. And while Harry Fabian has no trouble supplying anger, heresy and violence, his penchant for fraud and treachery are likely to get him killed.

 

Night And The City has been a perennial bestseller around the world since its publication in 1938 and has been filmed twice, proving that Gerald Kersh’s timeless rhetorical morality play is still a modern masterpiece.