Turmoil over Thurlow House. The new tenant of the garden house has barely moved in when a grisly murder happens. Is Mister Brown, the new tenant guilty? Who is he, anyway? His past is shrouded in mystery and nobody seems to know anything about him other than that he is wealthy? Strange things continue to happen... „The New Tenant” is a devious mystery from the „the prince of storytellers” Phillips Oppenheim who wrote nearly 150 novels during his career. Very much in the gen...

The young handsome Mayor of Mechester, Daniel Poynton is the owner of a very successful shoe manufacturer, the major employer in the city and the mayor will soon be a Lord Mayor. Never before interested in women, or even in social affairs, he is stricken by the beauty of The Lady Ursula Manningham and falls in love. As the novel develops, Poynton’s factory is threatened by foreign manufacturers who want to establish a cooperative monopoly with him. At the same time, Poynton...

Edward Phillips Oppenheim (1866-1946) was the earliest writer of spy fiction as understood today, inventing the „rogue male” school of adventure thrillers and writing over 150 novels of all sorts. In „The Golden Beast”, a woman curses her lover’s father, a baron, who had her gamekeeper father hanged. Years afterward, three of the baron’s descendants disappear in a manner that baffles Scotland Yard, appearing they were the victims of that ancient curse. Written in 1925, with...

Matravers is „an Apostle of Aestheticism” with „fixed views of life, down to even it’s most trifling details.” „A poet, philosopher, and man of fashion” who has „no intimate friends.” He writes for the London papers and reviews. One evening he is taken to the theater by a friend to see a „Norwegian” play by Istein, which he savages in his review. However the actress who plays the lead, Berenice, is brilliant, and is the same woman with whom he has been exchanging coy glance...

A World War I tale of espionage in a fictional „backwater” area in England with no apparent military value called Dreymarsh. The story begins with Dreymarsh residents discovering an observation car from a German zeppelin along with a Homburg hat near Dreymarsh. This discovery triggers a range of events and introduces a myriad of characters which all make for a rather delightful mystery. Oppenheim was famous for his hundreds of spy and espionage novels. He is considered one ...

Elegantly written novel, which tells about a young man who can not forgive his newly found father, because he left him and his mother. But after many living trials in many ways teach them both, they realize that there are other more important priorities and forces. A pleasant, easy-to-read, and thought-out essay.

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.

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...

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 ...

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...

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 ...

„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 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.

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.

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 late novel of E. Phillips Oppenheim begins as the „Train Bleu” pulls into the railroad station in Monaco. It’s a leisurely spy fiction tale set in Monaco as various members of aristocracy from different countries plus one vacationing American woman find themselves involved with international intrigue. The bulk of the book consists of members of the leisure class drinking cocktails, playing baccarat, and generally spending time in Monaco’s elite clubs. Oppenheim’s work ...