The Glass Pearls

This thrilling tale of an ex-Nazi surgeon hiding in plain sight in 1960s London by the celebrated filmmaker is a forgotten feat of Hitchcockian noir, introduced by Anthony Quinn (author of Curtain Call and Our Friends in Berlin).

‘This extraordinary novel had me hooked from start to finish, and left me with so much to brood on that I felt giddy … A fascinating, morally complex, deeply unsettling read.’ -Sarah Waters

‘A dark and harrowing window on the past: the ending will haunt your dreams. This is a novel that should never be forgotten again.’ -Janice Hallett

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 emigres, who assume that he, like them, came to England to flee Hitler. That summer, Braun courts a woman, attends classical concerts, buys bacon, dances the twist. But as the newspapers fill with reports of the hunt for Nazi war criminals, his nightmares become increasingly worse.

‘At once a wonderfully compelling noir thriller and, more significantly, an audacious and challenging act of imagination. A tremendous rediscovery.’ – William Boyd