Though dated stylistically, this novel has the makings of a decent movie thriller. The story takes place between the Anschluss, the Nazi takeover of Austria, March 1938, and the invasion of Poland in September 1939. A wealthy Jewish banker, philanthropist, and art collector is forced to flee Vienna to avoid imprisonment by the Nazi’s. He disappears on the night the Germans march into Austria, and his fortune and collection vanishes with him, leaving behind his personal secr...
„The Double Traitor” is an espionage novel set in the days leading to the first World War. The main character is Francis Norgate, an aspiring British diplomat who falls in disfavor with his superiors for defending a woman while stationed in Berlin. The resulting scandal causes Norgate to be recalled. On the way home, he meets a German gentleman, Selingman, who claims to be a crockery salesman. But, Selingman is not what he appears to be. Disillusioned by the English governm...
Lord Evelyn and a group of seven like-minded esthetes make up „The Ghosts” a cabal of social arbiters, of whom the mere mention is regarded as a faux pas. They are imbued with almost mystical power in setting tastes and trends and behavior for the members of Society in London in 1908. Desperate for stimulation „The Ghosts” embark on a risky program of wealth redistribution... other peoples wealth. Meanwhile, a spurned aspirant to their club, the American debutante Sophy Van...
Yet another collection of linked short stories from Oppenheim. By chance a young man and woman meet and set up an agency to aid Scotland Yard, but is romance in the air? This story deals with a young man and a young woman who make an informal partnership in criminal investigation. This whodunit murder mysteries collection brings to you some of Oppenheim’s finest murder mysteries to keep you at your toes: „The Evil Shepherd Murder at Monte Carlo”, or „Wolves Amongst the Hone...
In this tale of espionage set during World War I Britain, we encounter a variety of characters. Surgeon-Major General Hugh Thomson, the works apparent antagonist, who is endeavoring to clear the British troops of spies. He is on the trail of a German master spy who seems to be able to travel across the lines and back and forth between Germany and England. Captain Granet is a wounded war hero recently awarded the DSO and recovering after having been captured twice and escapi...
In this funny satire, Oppenheim offers us an argument that has been used in several movies: Two brothers come into a large inheritance with a pre-condition that they need to spend a big amount of money within a month. In the letter from their deceased father, they are enjoined to learn how to spend as well as that have learned how to save. The story deals with their noble efforts to spend their money without waste or ostentation. They back a musical comedy, finance a gold c...
This 1929 novel by E. Phillips Oppenheim neatly describes some of the frothy financial dealings of the late stage of the roaring 20’s in England and centered around a commercial chemical formula. The formula for the process is carefully guarded from it’s own employees, but is stolen one night by a band of five adventurers who plan to ransom it for 1 million pounds. Two men are killed during the robbery. Plans to ransom the process are put on hold, and the documents are depo...
„The Little Gentleman from Okehampstead” is a collection of connected stories about Mendel Honeywood, a diminutive insurance agent who skips out on his family and his hometown of Okehampstead, Massachusetts, and arrives in England, without a cent, to enter into a life of „crime”. He meets up with James Van Clarence Smith, disinherited scion of the wealthy American millionaires, and Lady Felicia Lakenham, upper-class, with a very small income. These three engage in somewhat ...
A wonderful old fashioned spy story set in the 1930’s. Like other Oppenheim romances of diplomacy, intrigue and espionage, this latest one poses a critical situation in the relationships of European powers which threatens the immediate out-break of war. „The Spy Paramount” takes us to Rome, 1934. American Martin Fawley, a former secret service agent, is recruited as a spy by General Berati, the most feared man in fascist Italy. Suave and worldly, Fawley is quite at home in ...
British author E. Phillips Oppenheim achieved worldwide fame with his thrilling novels and short stories concerning international espionage and intrigue, but including romances, comedies, and parables of everyday life. His novels and short stories have all the elements of blood-racing adventure and intrigue and are precursors of modern-day spy fictions. Readers of Mr. Oppenheim’s novels may always count on a story of absorbing interest, turning on a complicated plot, worked...
A striking romantic novel of 1913 of a young Englishman’s uphill fight. Douglas Guest is an orphan, raised by a stern, religious, and uncompromising uncle, Gideon Strong, in the North of England. His uncle orders him to marry his cousin and take up the post of cleric in their small town but he confronts his uncle, takes money which was intended for his education, and escapes to London. On the train, he meets the beautiful Countess Emily de Reuss, who takes an interest in hi...
This is a mystery novel surrounding German intrigue and bauxite mining in typical Oppenheim style. E. Phillips Oppenheim was the self-styled „prince of storytellers” and composed some one hundred and fifty novels, mainly of the suspense and international intrigue nature, but including romances, comedies, and parables of everyday life. In this one, Beverley, a handsome tycoon, operates an unknown bauxite mine in mythical kingdom of Orlac, and wages a battle of wits against G...
Mr. Roger Ferrison has just returned to London after several years of living rough in Canada. He takes a small room in the boarding house run by Mrs. Dewar. There he meets the bewitching invalid Fiona Quayne who rapidly develops a consuming passion for Ferrison. Meanwhile, back at the Boarding House, Colonel Dennett is murdered. One suspects from the very beginning that not all of the boarders at Mrs. Dewar’s establishment in Palace Crescent are what they appear to be, and ...
Aaron Rodd, who was a shy and awkward being, felt unexpectedly at his ease. He was even anxious for further conversation. He had a rather long, pale face, with deep-set eyes and rugged features. He was soberly, even sombrely dressed in dismal black. He had the air of a recluse. Perhaps that was why the young lady smiled upon him with such confidence.
The marathon supports the radical form of general strikes to put the entire English industry on its knees and begin a long struggle for the redistribution of wealth. In many eloquent speeches, he claims the cause of poverty. Lord Foley, by contrast, believes that the enemies of England are waiting for mass actions aimed at the collapse of the country, during which they will invade and win. The marathon is obstructed from all sides by opposition forces that are trying to bri...
A series of stories telling about the graceful crimes of a high class robber, a forger, a robber, a murderer. Stories in each of which are the same criminal, but under different names travels around the world, assuming new identities, avoiding militias and theft of fate. In one story, he helps the British intelligence in restoring critical documents from a foreign state. In another, he uses his skills to help a servant in trouble. In general, stories are of average quality,...
The Englishman is enjoying his dinner at Stephano’s, it was an ordinary evening. Suddenly a man comes quickly to his desk, begins to eat his food and quietly transfers him a package under the table. This is how Paul Welmsley’s acquaintance with American adventurer Joseph Parker and his beautiful daughter Eve begin. Very interesting adventure story for easy reading.
This is another great novel by Edward Phillips Oppenheim, the prolific English novelist who was in his lifetime a major and successful writer of genre fiction including thrillers and spy novels, and who wrote over a 100 of them. When David Granet asks for a place to stay „within a twenty-mile radius of either Nice or Cannes”, he does not anticipate the trouble that he finds at the Manoir of Lady Grassleyes. The Lady of the manor is dead when he arrives, and the will is disp...
The novel tells about the struggle of a young man for wealth in colonial Africa and about his search for happiness in this country. Although he is trying to do everything right and honest, he is prevented by many opponents who bring only a great calamity. But despite all the difficulties, the story ends with a happy end.
In this romantic story tells about how in 1905 a young British tourist accidentally witnesses a strange meeting in Germany. Then, in Paris, he tells about it not in the company where it could be shared. His sister, who had to meet with him finds his brother’s baggage at the hotel, but he himself disappeared. The French police are pretending to be looking for him persistently, but then the sister himself disappears. A childhood friend who is in love with her is asking her fr...
„BEHOLD! „ cried Sabul Ahmid, with an upward sweep of his bare, brown arm, „behold the Sacred Temple of the people of Astrea! „ I stood up in the boat, my portfolio under my arm. High on the mountain’s side, crowning a thick mass of laurel undergrowth, and flanked by a grove of deep, cool, byana trees, was the building to which my servant was pointing. The material whereof it was fashioned I could not at that distance determine. Only in the broad, tropical sunlight it flash...
A mystery novel with international intrigue set in London before World War Two. Sir Maurice Oldfield was one of the most important British spies of the Cold War era. A farmer’s son from a provincial grammar school who found himself accidentally plunged into the world of espionage, Sir Maurice was the first Chief of MI6 who didn’t come to the role via the traditional public school and Oxbridge route. Working his way to the top of the secret service, he took on the job of reb...
This is a very clever collection of linked stories by E. Phillips Oppenheim written in 1913. Algernon Knox, pretty young, dapper, seemingly silly, has failed at everything. Although wealthy, he fails when he stands for parliament. By chance he becomes involved in a blackmail against his uncle, who is a diplomat. Knox foils the plot, and a new career is born, the gentleman detective. In some ways, the young man carries out increasingly dangerous and cleaver missions against ...
John Strangeways lives the life of a country Gentleman farmer with his puritan brother in the hills of Cumberland. Far from the world of cities and noise he lived the clean, healthy, out-of-door life. When actress Louise Maurel’s car breaks down near their farm, she is forced to seek refuge with the misogynist brothers. Love ensues. Life no longer was quite the same to him, and in a short time he followed her to London. The coming of an unsophisticated though well educated,...