Wide Boys Never Work

By Robert Westerby,

Book cover of Wide Boys Never Work

Book description

First published in 1937, Wide Boys Never Work brings the streets of pre-war London alive in the tradition of other great low-life novelists such as Gerald Kersh and James Curtis, and is a forgotten gem rich in both its snappy dialogue and vibrant prose style. This new edition from London…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Wide Boys Never Work as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

A tale of West London in the 1930s, Westerby brings to life a lost world of gamblers looking for mugs at the long-gone White City dog track.

Local teenager Jim teeters on the edge of the criminal underworld in a thriller woven into a London you can almost taste—teeming with life and the inevitability of death in the shadow of the coming war.  

From Tom's list on revisiting lost London.

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