Imprint
- Abacus
- Abacus
Fiction, Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)
The gripping lost masterpiece novel of wartime Vienna.
Vienna in 1938 is a place of high culture, gilded opera houses and intellectual salons. Beautiful actress Julia Homburg and her politician husband Franz Wedeker embody all the enlightened brilliance of their native city. But Wedeker is Jewish, and just across the border the tanks of the Nazi Reich are primed for the Anschluss.
When the SS invades and disappearances become routine, Franz must be concealed. With daring ingenuity, Julia conjures a hiding place. In the shadow of oppression, a clear conscience is a luxury few can afford, and Julia finds she must strike a series of hateful bargains with the new order if she and her husband are to survive.
A highly acclaimed bestseller when first published in the 1960s, NIGHT FALLS ON THE CITY is a true lost classic, and an unforgettable portrait of wartime.
More books by Sarah Gainham
Sarah Gainham
Sarah Gainham was born in London in 1915. She moved to Germany in her early thirties, shortly after WWII, and then to Austria, where she remained for over fifty years. It is in central Europe that her early thrillers such as Cold Dark Night, The Stone Roses and Silent Hostage are played out.
Night Falls on the City was first published to worldwide acclaim in 1967. She later wrote two further novels set in Vienna, A Place in the Country and Private Worlds. Gainham reported regularly on central European affairs for the Spectator, Encounter and the New Republic. She died in Austria in 1999.
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