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The illicit gambling house in the Place Noire was raided by the police in Paris. Several of the gang were killed, one was caught and jailed, and one escaped by shambling off in the guise of a workman, accompanied by a young girl, a dwarf, and a monkey. Gilbert Hannaway, who was wounded as a bystander on the night of the raid, has been searching for the girl for five years but, one evening, he finds her. Lord Ellingham is a peer of the realm, with a successful marriage, and ...

Edward Phillips Oppenheim (1866 1946), an English novelist, was a major and successful writer of genre fiction, particularly thrillers. Among his books are „The Betrayal”, „The Avenger”, „The Double Life of Mr. Alfred Burton”, „The Devil’s Paw”, and „The Evil Shepherd”. Many of Oppenheim’s works appeared as newspaper or magazine serials before they were published in book form. The serial versions of his novels were often syndicated for publication in periodicals in the USA ...

This is a connected collection of short stories about the leader of a secret society pledged to protect England and their German adversary. In „The Double Four”, Peter is called out of retirement by that organization, which, since his departure, has morphed into a sort of private diplomatic secret service. Peter acquires a title, some nice clothes, and a new archenemy, a German spy, Bernadine. Light hearted with a bit of romance along with the action and fancy pants English...

Another great spy novel from the british author E. Phillips Oppenheim who achieved worldwide fame with his thrilling novels and short stories concerning international espionage and intrigue. This one is a connected collection of short stories about the leader of a secret society pledged to protect England and their German adversary. This novel is an Oppenheim classic from 1919 about a high society villain: characteristic of Oppenheim’s typical works, with the characters liv...

With the police hot on his tail, Peter Ruff decides to turn from a life of crime to the more lucrative life of a private investigator. With his ties to the underworld and his skill at disguise, Peter is the perfect sleuth. Along with his trusted and beautiful assistant, Violet Brown, Mr. Ruff is brilliantly successful in his new career. As his reputation for solving crime grows, he is noticed and adopted as a leader by a large conglomerate of criminals who have chosen to tu...

Edward Phillips Oppenheim is considered one of the originators of the thriller genre, his novels also range from spy thrillers to romance, but all have an undertone of intrigue. This novel is one of E. Phillips Oppenheim’s best works and opens with a fantastic description of the boring life of Mr. Peter Cradd, leather merchant, husband, father, slave to his family, stoic self denier, and all-around put upon man in the bowler hat. He is barely able to pay his bills, has a wi...

A solitary cabin stood far away in the backwoods of Canada, outside all tracks of civilization, in a region which only the native Indians and a few daring trappers cared to penetrate. Rudely built of pine logs, it was ill-calculated to withstand the piercing cold and frost which, for nine months out of the twelve, holds this region in an iron grip. Around it, a small clearing had been effected, but the ground was many feet thick in snow, which, save where in front of the do...

Havoc occurs when European countries are discussing covert alliances. The story revolves around the creation of a secret alliance between Germany, Russia, and Austria. The English hope to split Russia away by holding the Czar to his previous public commitments, but they need proof of what was done to create the pressure. All the pressures that lead to WWI are there, but the intrigues and secret treaties create an interesting background to the twists and turns of the plot....

In an interesting precursor to the later „I Spy” television series, the novel follows the activities of a young British tennis professional, Mervyn Amory, who is spending the season in Monte Carlo. While traveling from Paris on Le Train Bleu, he meets an Italian secret agent who is carrying documents which show the treachery of the dictator Matorni. Matorni is a thinly disguised Mussolini. (The title of the novel bears no relation to the book). Interestingly, this novel was...

It is strange to find Mr. Phillips Oppenheim choosing as his hero an earnest politician with a love for social reform. „Nobody’s Man” starts out as a standard whodunit murder mystery then makes an abrupt lane-change into British politics of the mid-1920’s. Brigadier general Andrew Tallente, late of Parliament, is implicated in the death of his male secretary, the son of a classmate at Eton. Seems the younger man may have not only been having an affair with the hero’s Americ...

E. Phillips Oppenheim was a popular 20th century writer best known for penning suspenseful thriller novels like „The Mystery of Mr. Bernard Brown”. Many of his more than 100 novels are still read today. His novels and short stories have all the elements of blood-racing adventure and intrigue and are precursors of modern-day spy fictions. „Nicholas Goade, Detective” is a collection of short mysteries about a Scotland Yard detective on holiday. As he travels across England wi...

„Mr. Mirakel” is the last novel written by E. Phillips Oppenheim in 1943. Marquis Roderigo de Cordovina is leaving his Portuguese estates in Lisbon because he is being pressured to join the German military and command a mechanical battalion. He meets Miss Anne Strangeways in the seaplane terminal. The two board an airboat for London. Shortly thereafter, they meet again at the home of Princess Rosina Di Gomez who is the niece of the Portuguese Ambassador. At this point the p...

The man was awaiting the service of his dinner in the magnificent buffet of the Gare de Lyon. He sat at a table laid for three, on the right-hand side of the entrance and close to the window. From below came the turmoil of the trains. In appearance he was of somewhat less than medium height, of unathletic, almost frail, physique. His head was thrust a little forward, as though he were afflicted with a chronic stoop. He wore steel-rimmed spectacles with the air of one who ha...

Jacob’s Ladder begins: Seated at breakfast on that memorable July morning, Jacob Pratt presented all the appearance of a disconsolate man. His little country sitting-room was as neat and tidy as the capable hands of the inimitable Mrs. Harris could make it. His coffee was hot and his eggs were perfectly boiled. Through the open windows stretched a little vista of the many rows of standard roses which had been the joy of his life. Yet blank misery dwelt in the soul of this e...

Harvey Garrard, as his limousine crawled over London Bridge and turned into the dingy streets beyond, leaned forward in his seat looking out of the window with the half-weary anticipation of one who revisits familiar but distasteful scenes. There was a faint air of disgust in his expression as the well-known odours of the neighbourhood assailed his nostrils. Forty-eight hours ago he had been living in a paradise of mimosa and roses warmed by Riviera sunshine, his senses rea...

The clamour of crushing boughs and howling wind sank every now and then into insignificance before the roaring of deep-throated guns, whose red fire flashed out across what seemed to be a bottomless abyss. Below, the army of the Turks decimated in numbers, yet still a host, within the walls of Crersa, the defenders of an oppressed and brave country making their last stand in their ancient stronghold.

This is another adventure Oppenheim thriller written in 1899. When Phillip Morton is eight years old, his father is pushed off the edge of a slate quarry. A servant from the local castle is suspected. Ten years later, by chance, Phillip meets the lord of the local castle, the scholar and adventurer Ravenor. On a whim, Ravenor offers to pay for Phillip’s further education if Phillip will befriend his wayward nephew. Phillip meets Mr. Marx, Lord Ravenor’s secretary, and is bo...

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...

This novel was written in 1926, almost ten years after the Russian revolution. The nature and tragedy of the Soviet revolution and the new regime are clearly described in this novel. The ruthless and deadly power of Soviet communism tries to extend its reach to the Trade Unions of the postwar United Kingdom. The activities of various secret agents, civilian, commercial, military and cultural are described in this book.

’Michael’s Evil Deeds’ (and they are very evil at times) is a rather ingenious crime novel in more ways than one. Firstly the 11 chapters each represent a separate incident but overall they do link together, if on occasions somewhat loosely. And secondly the tale is told by various of the protagonists so there is often a different point of view within each chapter.

The two men hesitated upon the tee, gazing down the glade towards the distant-green. Their caddies were still pointing in excitement to a motionless object stretched upon the smooth turf close to the flag. „Look there! „ „It’s a man! „ „He is dead! „ The players paused to consider the situation. They were oddly contrasted combatants–one, Mr. Edgar Franks, elderly, large and florid, with a mass of flaxen hair only slightly streaked with grey, a transatlantic millionaire, and...

When Lord Wolfenden saw, in the supper-room of the Milan Restaurant, a beautiful woman and became acquainted with her by saving the life of her elderly companion, the mysterious Mr. Sabin, as they leave the restaurant, he little knew the web of intrigue into which he was entering. Twists and turns galore, enjoyable descriptions about the upper-crust and by-gone days. Mr. Oppenheim can be depended upon to give his plots that turn which is as admirable as it is unexpected, an...

This connected series of stories chronicle the adventures of a young American graduate of Harvard college, M. Edmund Martin and the retired British soldier, Colonel Green on the Cote d’Azur in the period just to World War 1. The two meet at a casino, and manage to avoid many of the classic traps which await the idle wealthy of the time. Seemingly inadvertently, they foil crooks, rescue maidens, recover stolen jewels, help young lovers, assist spies against Germany, and foil...

At half-past eleven o’clock–Mr. Billingham was a man of regular habits–he quitted the promenade, crossed the Place in front of the Casino, and selected a table outside the Café de Paris. He selected it simply because it happened to be the nearest empty one and without even a glance at his neighbours. It was nevertheless, without a doubt, by the direction of that mysterious influence called fate that he should have chosen that particular chair and ordered his champagne cockt...

Victorian Socialist Romance. Enoch Strone is a book-loving rustic loner who lives in a remote hand-built cabin. He works as a mechanical engineer in the industrial town of Gascester. One evening he meets a poor factory girl, Milly, who has been abandoned by her friends during a walk in the woods. On the same day he is accosted by the Reverand Martinghoe who introduces Strone to his beautiful, widowed, wealthy sister Lady Malingcourt. Strone is bewitched by her lovely singin...

One of many great works by E. Phillips Oppenheim, who styled himself as the „prince of storytellers,” and is credited with creating the ‘rogue male’ genre of adventure thrillers and was one of the earliest writers of spy fiction from the late 19th and early 20th Century England. The hero in this one is Roger Sloane, a well-off American bon vivant who decides to blow the whistle on a gang of transplanted American gangsters who have abandoned New York and set up a sophisticat...

Mr. Samuel T. Billingham of New York, recently landed from the great liner anchored a few miles out, walked along the Terrace at Monte Carlo, serene, light-hearted, beatifically content. His yellow shoes and his variegated socks might be described as a trifle vivid, but the rest of his attire–his well-pressed grey suit, his irreproachable linen, and his well- shaped grey Homburg hat– was beyond criticism. He was a man of medium height, thick-set, inclined a little, perhaps,...

The Princess opened her eyes at the sound of her maid’s approach. She turned her head impatiently toward the door. „Annette,” she said coldly, „did you misunderstand me? Did I not say that I was on no account to be disturbed this afternoon? „ Annette was the picture of despair. Eyebrows and hands betrayed alike both her agitation of mind and her nationality.

The Prince broke open a big box of choice ‘Petroffs’, selected one, lit it slowly, and walked pensively to the window. He was in a good mood that morning, for he had just got rid of a troublesome visitor.

General, his companion pronounced, „you are getting fat. Too many cocktails.” General Besserley, late of the Secret Service at Washington and now a very popular member of Monaco society, glanced downwards at his slightly increasing outline. He was rather a fine figure of a man and his carriage was beyond reproach, but it was certainly true that there was sometimes a little difficulty about the two bottom buttons of his waistcoat.

In this novel tells about Alexander, the head of a huge movement aimed at returning to Russia a more conservative government. And also about his beautiful spy love, Anna, who works against the gang of butchers for the Soviet chief.

A novel written in 1912. These are good Victorian or Edward tales about representatives of the English upper class who are engaged in uncovering crimes, espionage, good deeds and shrouded by secrets. Some of these stories Oppenheim continued to develop in full novels. Others are short master classes with sketches, character and description. Unlike many of his stories, the ending for a couple of them is more acute or sad than usual.

We all got up from tea in the hall, made our way to the drawing-room, and thence into the morning-room, which opened out of it. There was plenty of daylight still. James came in after us, and went straight up to a framed panel portrait which stood with others on a small table in a remote corner. It showed a tall handsome, clean-shaved man of three or four and thirty, of fine physique, seated astride a chair, his arms folded across the back of the chair as he faced the camer...

We were standing together in the small shabby bedroom of the boarding-house wherein I lived in Granville Gardens, facing the recreation ground close to Shepherd’s Bush Railway Station. The stifling July day was at an end, and the narrow room was lit by the soft hazy glow of the fast-fading London sunset. Through the open window came the shouts of children at play upon the „green” opposite, mingled with the chatter of the passers-by and the ever-increasing whirr of the elect...

It was a brilliant good Saturday morning before the harvest, and the large market and curves of the streets in Norwich proceed with a continuous crowd of farmers, livestock, dealers, county ladies with opinions that are adhering to shopping. Frantsinin on the London Street is filled up quickly: a very nice sight for worshiping a small owner who is standing in the upper corner of the room, managing his midridon’s operations, rubbing his hands and smiling, kindly begging each...

Detective Inspector John Dickins seated himself in silence. It was not the first of such conferences to which he had been summoned, but this time everyone knew that the situation was critical. He remained silent, waiting for his Chief to continue.

Ronald, Count Matsertser, was a world traveler and amateur. After several years of travel, he returns to his Norfolian estates, which deals with hunting, research and espionage in Africa and Asia. His treasures are huge, but his heart is empty. One night, a mysterious mercenary attacks him directly behind the gate of his estate.

Upward in long sinuous bends the road wound its way into the heart of the hills. The man, steadily climbing to the summit, changed hands upon the bicycle he was pushing, and wiped the sweat from his grimy forehead. It had been a gray morning when he had left, with no promise of this burst of streaming sunshine. Yet the steep hill troubled him but little--he stepped blithely forward with little sign of fatigue.

This is another great collection of short stories 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. He was the self-styled „prince of storytellers., generally regarded as the earliest writer of spy fiction as we know it today, and invented the ’Rogue Male’ school of adventure thrillers. This volume is a collection of 10 myste...

American Millionaire meets Ruritanean Princess, Jeremiah Vavasour Strole meets the Princess Marya of Pletz at a weekend party in the Hamptons on Long Island. The year is 1933. Much of the world has been plunged into economic ruin by the stock market crash. Marya’s country, Jakovia, is ruled by a playboy monarch who would rather spend his nights with courtesans in Paris, than pay attention to the starving people of his homeland. Michael Grogner, the chief of police and son o...

Impatient of the numerous checks which had held up his car all the way from Croydon, Gerald Jennerton let down the window and looked out. London, he realised at once, was swallowing him up. Not the London upon which he had gazed half an hour ago from his earthward-gliding aeroplane–a huge, tumbled chaos of obscurity, with its far-spreading myriads of lights–but an engulfing wilderness of endless streets, through which cars from every direction seemed to be racing to some ma...

The youth in the multi-coloured blazer laughed. „You’d have to come and be a nurse,” he suggested. „Oh, I’d go as a drummer-boy. I’d look fine in uniform, wouldn’t I? „ the waitress simpered in return. Dennis Burnham swallowed his liqueur in one savage gulp, pushed back his chair, and rose from the table.

”See! It’s–it’s in my kit-bag, over there! The thing–the Thing at which the whole world will stand aghast! „ The thin, white-faced, grey-bearded man lying on his back in bed roused himself with difficulty, and with skinny finger pointed at his strong but battered old leather bag lying in the corner of the small hotel bedroom.

Miss Sadie Loyes, the manageress of the Hotel Weltmore Typewriting and Secretarial Bureau, set down the receiver of the telephone which had its place upon her desk and looked thoughtfully around at the eleven young ladies who comprised her present staff. She stood there, an angular, untidy-looking person, tapping a pencil against her teeth, unconscious arbitress, not only of the fate of two very interesting people, but also of the fate of a great nation. Portentous events d...

General Besserley sat before his writing-table, drawn close up to the wide-flung windows of his summer-house, his pen clasped in his idle fingers, his eyes wandering though a tangle of drooping roses and clematis beyond the gardens below to where a car was crawling up the mountain road. He leaned a little sideways and touched a bell. In a few moments a white-coated butler opened the door and approached the table.

Five people were seated around a table in the private office of a well-known solicitor in Lincoln’s Inn. Their expressions and general attitude were sufficiently disturbed to suggest that their gathering was of no ordinary moment. A grey-haired, untidy looking woman in seedy black was tapping the mahogany table in front of her with long, ill-cared for nails, and breathing quickly. A fat, red-cheeked man, with a waistcoat the lower buttons of which failed to connect, with bl...

I am a Veiled Man. Openly, I confess myself a vagabond and a brigand. Living here, in the heart of the Great Desert, six moons march from Algiers, and a thousand miles beyond the French outposts, theft is, with my nomadic tribe, their natural industry–a branch of education, in fact. We augment the meagreness of our herds by extorting ransoms from some of our neighbours, and completely despoiling others. Mention of the name of Ahamadou causes the face of the traveller on any...

No second glance was needed to realise the pitiful truth. The man seated there in his fine library, with the summer sunset slanting across the red carpet from the open French windows, was blind. Since his daughter Gabrielle had been a pretty, prattling child of nine, nursing her dolly, he had never looked upon her fair face. But he was ever as devoted to her as she to him.

„The Invasion of 1910” is a novel written mainly by William Le Queux (along with H. W. Wilson providing the naval chapters). It is centered on an invasion by the Germans, who have managed to land a sizable invasion force on the East Coast of England. They reach London and occupy half the city. A junior Member of Parliament organizes a resistance movement, the „League of Defenders” and the Germans seem unable to combat this and tighten their control of London, and suddenly f...

Up to that time, I remember, my big brass plate, with the legend „Mr Hugh Glynn, Secret Investigator,” had only succeeded in drawing a very average and ordinary amount of business. True, I had had several profitable cases in which wives wanted to know what happened to their husbands when they didn’t come home at the usual hours, and employers were anxious to discover certain leakages through which had disappeared a percentage of their cash; but for the most part my work had...

”The Ladybird will refuse to have anything to do with the affair, my dear fellow. It touches a woman’s honour, and I know her too well.” „Bah! We’ll compel her to help us. She must.” „She wouldn’t risk it,” declared Harry Kinder, shaking his head. „Risk it! Well, we’ll have to risk something! We’re in a nice hole just now! Our traps at the Grand, with a bill of two thousand seven hundred francs to pay, and ‘the Ladybird’ coolly sends us from London a postal order for twenty...

From a derelict shed adjoining a lonely road which stretched for miles across the Norfolk fens, a strange shape slid silently into the night mist. It was a motor-car of an unfamiliar design. The body, of gleaming aluminium, was of unusual width, and was lifted high above the delicate chassis and spidery bicycle wheels that seemed almost too fragile to bear the weight of an engine.

Some year and a half ago, my friend and erstwhile neighbour. Dr. Archibald More d’Escombe, died suddenly, and shortly after his decease I received from his solicitors a sealed packet addressed to me in his handwriting, with instructions that it was not to be opened until after his death.

A grey, sunless morning on the Firth of Tay. Across a wide, sandy waste stretching away to the misty sea at Budden, four men were walking. Two wore uniform–one an alert, grey-haired general, sharp and brusque in manner, with many war ribbons across his tunic; the other a tall, thin-faced staff captain, who wore the tartan of the Gordon Highlanders. With them were two civilians, both in rough shooting-jackets and breeches, one about forty-five, the other a few years his juni...

These strange facts would never have been placed on record, nor would this exciting chapter of an eventful life have been written, except for two reasons: first, because the discovery I made has been declared to be of considerable importance to scientists, bibliophiles, and the world at large; and, secondly, because it is my dear wife’s wish that in order to clear her in the eyes of both friends and foes nothing should be concealed, misrepresented, or withheld.

On this particular morning, about ten o’clock, the seafront was already full of men in flannels and lounge-suits, and women in garments of muslin and other such flimsy materials usually affected at the seaside, for stifled and jaded Londoners had flocked down there, as usual, to enjoy the sea air and all the varied attractions which Southport never fails to offer.

Though it was a gay comic opera that was being performed for the first time, entertainers and entertained lost all interest in each other. They were amazed, dismayed, awestricken. Amusement was nauseating; War, with all its attendant horrors, was actually upon them! The popular tenor, one of the idols of the hour, blundered over his lines and sang terribly out of tune, but the hypercritical first-night audience passed the defect unnoticed. They only thought of what might ha...

Michael Berrington is a bachelor leading a quiet life in London. Overhearing a conversation at his club one day, he becomes interested in a discussion regarding a man named Gastrell. Gastrell is somewhat of a mystery to the club members in spite of his renting a house from one of them. Berrington’s interest in Gastrell intensifies as his fiancé, Dulcie Challoner, befriends a wealthy widow, Mrs. Connie Stapleton who evidently has some type of relationship with Gastrell. As t...

Thrice hath the Fast of Ramadan come and gone since the Granter of Requests last allowed my eyes to behold the well-remembered landscape, scarcely visible in the pale light of dawn. Hills, covered with tall feathery palms, rose abruptly from the barren, sun-scorched plain, and, at their foot, stood the dazzlingly-white city of Omdurman, the impregnable and mysterious headquarters of Mahdiism, while beyond, like a silver ribbon winding through the marshes, the Nile glided, h...

The style ofThe Day of Temptationis very melodramatic and overwritten – adjectives and adverbs abound to the confusion of the reader. The book is very much set in high society and sometimes reminds me of the immortal Daisy Ashford – I’m sure books like this were among her inspiration.

Strange is a good way to sum up the story. The refusal of our hero to get more help is, frankly, quite confusing, and he’s darn lucky to survive. The ending is bad – you just let the villain go? Really? Yeah, he gets his just desserts, but still, not a fan of that sort of conclusion by accident. Regardless, I do love the idea of falling love by photograph. If you like a strange, complicated mystery, give it a try.

When I was fourteen, we moved to London with my father. He became an agent on Wood Street, City, representing a large silk maker in Lyon. At the age of twenty, I worked in an office with dusty books and a large armchair that I did not really like. I was always interested in mechanics, but my father did not perceive her as a profession and wanted me to walk in his footsteps.

Imagine an organized gang of thieves, ruthless, working together like a modern machine, run by one man referred to only as „Golden Face."This tale inexorably takes you step-by-step into the organization, as we follow the main character’s fall into the underworld of crime.Takes place around the 1900s, but action packed and loaded with intrigue; even room for a budding romance in with all the twists and turns of the story.Really enjoyed this story, looking for more like it....

I sometimes despair of the country ever becoming alive to the danger of the unpreparedness of our present position until too late to prevent some fatal catastrophe. This was the keynote of a solemn warning made in the House of Lords by Earl Roberts. His lordship, whilst drawing attention to our present inadequate forces, strongly urged that action should be taken in accordance with the recommendations of the Elgin Commission that „no military system could be considered sati...

In this story I have dealt with an extraordinary phase of modern life in London, which to the majority will come as a startling revelation. Some will, perhaps, declare that no such amazing state of things exists in this, the most enlightened age the world has known. To such, I can only assert that in this decadent civilisation of ours the things which I have described actually take place in secret, as certain facts in my possession indisputably show.

Being some Curious Records concerning the Craft and Cunning of Theodore Drost, an enemy alien in London, together with certain Revelations regarding his daughter Ella The pair had been discussing certain schemes to the detriment of the English: schemes which, in the main, depended upon the crafty old Drost’s expert knowledge of high-explosives.

Our hero, Richard Scarsmere, befriends an individual (Omar) at an English boarding school who turns out to be an African prince from a kingdom called Mo. Omar receives a visit from one of his mother’s trusted advisers. His mother, the Great White Queen, seeks him to return home immediately. Omar convinces Scarsmere to return to Africa with him since there is little opportunity awaiting him in London. What follows is a tale of deceit, treachery, barbarity, and mystery....

Warm, brilliant, and cloudless was the July noon. Beneath the summer sun the broad, shallow waters of the Meuse sparkled as they rippled swiftly onward through the deep, winding valley of grey rocks and cool woods on their way from the mountains of Lorraine, through peaceful, prosperous Belgium, towards the sea.

To allow so young and delicate a girl to tramp England aimlessly in search of some vague and secret information which seemed to be her erratic father’s object, was, we decided, an utter impossibility; therefore, following that night of our first meeting at Helpstone, Burton and his daughter remained our guests for a week, and, after many consultations and some little economies, we were at last successful in placing Mabel at school, a service for which we later received her ...

An interesting classic mystery, yes, I guess I could say enjoyable but to a certain extent... At first you are dragged to the edge of your seat wondering whats going to happen next or what the hell does this unusual introduction mean, then you’re hit with a bunch of senarios that keep you wanting to just continue to the next chapter to see what will happen, then you realise that some of what you may have suspected in the beginning IS the conclusion to the plot...

Jeśli ktoś uważa, że na świecie nie ma już dziś bajarek ani bajarzy, nie do końca ma rację. Otóż istnieją, tylko są trochę inni niż ci dawniejsi i trzeba umieć ich szukać. Potrafi to robić mój syn, Antoni. To on znajdował bajarzy, nagrywał ich opowieści i przysyłał mi te nagrania. Szukanie bajarzy przypomina szukanie w lesie grzybków i jest pełne niespodzianek. Każdy bajarz baje po swojemu, a co ważniejsze – taką mową, jaką mówi się w jego okolicy, jego małej ojczyźnie. ...

Frank Burgoyne, newly rich through inheritance, falls madly and improbably in love with a beautiful but mysterious Russian and becomes unwittingly and unknowingly embroiled in an international plot punctuated by a series of murders. Burgoyne suffers several bewildering experiences, including incarcerations in Russia and England, and he is constantly questioning his love’s motivations and fealty.