The Glass Pearls (Faber Editions) : A wonderful noir thriller and tremendous rediscovery - William Boyd

Author: Pressburger, Emeric

Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)

Published on 4 August 2022 by FABER & FABER in the United Kingdom as part of the Faber Editions series.

Paperback | 288 pages
130 x 198 x 20 | 246g

For fans of The Passenger, this thrilling tale of an ex-Nazi surgeon hiding in plain sight in 1960s London by the celebrated filmmaker is a lost noir gem, introduced by Anthony Quinn and narrated on audio by Mark Gatiss, as chosen by Ian Rankin on BBC Radio 4s A Good Read.

Stunning: incredibly good, tense and compelling and morally complex. Ian RankinThis extraordinary novel had me hooked from start to finish. Sarah WatersAn outstanding novel: gripping, tense and darkly unsettling. Jonathan FreedlandA wonderfully compelling noir thriller and audacious and challenging act of imagination. William BoydOne of the best London novels of the 20th century. Benjamin Myers Nothing is more inviting to disclose your secrets than to be told by others of their own ...

London, June 1965. Karl Braun arrives as a lodger in Pimlico: hatless, with a bow-tie, greying hair, slight in build. His new neighbours are intrigued by this cultured German gentleman who works as a piano tuner; many are fellow émigrés, who assume that he, like them, came to England to flee Hitler. That summer, Braun courts a woman, attends classical concerts, dances the twist. But as the newspapers fill with reports of the hunt for Nazi war criminals, his nightmares become increasingly worse .

A haunting, remarkable novel, as startlingly original as any of Pressburgers films. Nicola UpsonA dark and harrowing window on the past: the ending will haunt your dreams. Janice Hallett