The Glass Pearls

Faber Editions

By: Emeric Pressburger, Anthony Quinn - introduction

Narrated by: Mark Gatiss

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 4's A Good Read.

'Stunning: incredibly good, thought-provoking and tense.' Ian Rankin
'This extraordinary novel had me hooked from start to finish.' Sarah Waters
'An outstanding novel: gripping, tense and darkly unsettling. ' Jonathan Freedland
'A wonderfully compelling noir thriller and audacious and challenging act of imagination.' William Boyd

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 .

©2022 Emeric Pressburger and Anthony Quinn (P)2022 Faber Audio

Critic reviews

"A wonderfully compelling noir thriller and audacious and challenging act of imagination." (William Boyd)

"This extraordinary novel had me hooked from start to finish." (Sarah Waters)

"Incredibly good, thought-provoking and tense." (Ian Rankin)