Philip Carter, a classic Highsmith ‘criminal-hero’, is sent to an American prison for a crime he didn’t commit. While incarcerated he goes to prison movies, ‘though the bill of fare was always, or had been so far, stuff that he would never have wasted time on outside of prison.’ He also goes with his new friend Max, ‘It was good to have someone beside him who thought the films just as mediocre as he did. Their friendship was noticed, of course, by some of the guards as well as many inmates.’

Later, after Carter has been released from prison, he takes his son Timmie ‘to the movie on Twenty-third he’s been wanting to see… It’s a western or something.’

Towards the end of the book, Carter kills time in a cinema, again on Twenty-third Street, on his way to kill a man who is blackmailing him.

The Glass Cell was made into a film in West Germany in 1978 (Director: Hans W. Geissendörfer).