Author(s): Emeric Pressburger

Novel | Crime and Thriller

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.

'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

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 Pressburger's films.' Nicola Upson
'A dark and harrowing window on the past: the ending will haunt your dreams.' Janice Hallett

"Deserves to be recognized both for its own virtuosity, and as an important addition to the genre of Holocaust literature ... A master class in rendering the banality of evil ... Magnificent." -- Paris Review

Author Biography: Imre Jozsef Pressburger was born into a middle-class Jewish family in Miskolc, Hungary, in 1902. He studied in Prague and Stuttgart before the sudden death of his father forced him to get a job to support himself and his mother. He moved to Weimar-era Berlin in 1926, where he worked as a journalist then as a scriptwriter at the prestigious UFA. With the rise of the Nazi Party in 1933, Pressburger lost his job in the purge of Jewish employees and fled to Paris. His mother - and many relatives - died in Auschwitz; he never forgave himself for not being able to take her when he fled. In 1935 he relocated to London with its booming film industry and met Michael Powell. From 1942 they shared credit for writing, producing and directing 14 films released by their joint production company, The Archers, including The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, A Matter of Life and Death, Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes. Pressburger was made a Fellow of BAFTA in 1981 and the BFI in 1983, and also wrote two novels: Killing a Mouse on Sunday (1961) and The Glass Pearls (1966). Originally on a stateless passport, he changed his name to Emeric in 1938 and became a British citizen in 1946. He married twice and had a daughter, and died in Suffolk in 1988.

Anthony Quinn was born in Liverpool in 1964. From 1998 to 2013 he was the film critic for the Independent. He is the author of six prize-winning novels including Curtain Call, Freya, Eureka, Our Friends in Berlin, and London, Burning.