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...

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...

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...

Edward Phillips Oppenheim (1866-1946) was an English novelist, in his lifetime a major and successful writer of genre fiction. This novel is an Oppenheim classic from 1919 about a high society villain: characteristic of Oppenheim’s typical works, with the characters living in luxury, and a very flowing and exact story. Much of Oppenheim’s work possesses a unique escapist charm, featuring protagonists who delight in Epicurean meals, surroundings of intense luxury, and the re...

Alfred Burton, a smooth-talking salesman, is having a perfectly ordinary day on the job when he stumbles across a strange plant with green leaves and a cluster of queer little brown beans hanging down from them in an old house. The virtue of the beans is that he who eats one shall see nothing, think nothing, say nothing but the truth. Alfred Burton has a well-meaning, rather ordinary wife who becomes unendurable to him, and he falls in love with a charming girl who would ha...

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.

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.

Mr. Hamer Wildburn, a young American, graduate of Harvard is wintering on the Mediterranean coast of France in his newly purchased yacht „The Bird of Paradise”, and is puzzled by the desire he finds in visitors coming aboard at different times to buy the vessel from him. One night he is awoken at 3 am by the cries of a beautiful, and wearing priceless emeralds, woman swimming alongside. She comes aboard and offers to buy the yacht for twice what he paid. The next day, the f...

E. Phillips Oppenheim wrote most famously of secret agents and duplicitous diplomats, secret treaties and international conspiracies, moonlit Riviera casinos, Swiss hotel suites, perilous yacht trips, and glamorous trans-European express trains. Known in his time as „the Prince of Storytellers,” Oppenheim, like the brand names of today’s best seller lists, offered readers in the first half of the 20th century a steady, predictable, and entertaining supply of pop fiction. „T...

This is a very early novel by E. Phillips Oppenheim from 1897. The wealthy and bored Lord Hildyard, Marquis of Esholt, is on a yachting tour with a group of friends, including his kept lover, Pauline Owston. When Hildyard spies an apparently uninhabited island, he slips off the ship in search of adventure. In the middle of the night, he hears wonderful violin music and finds a young and beautiful girl, Bertha, playing in the forest. She is accompanied by a cruel and misshap...

Roger Sloane jest młodym Amerykaninem mieszkającym na Lazurowym Wybrzeżu pod koniec lat dwudziestych. Spotyka starego kolegę z klasy, który wędruje po Europie po odziedziczeniu tytułu w Anglii. Dwaj przyjaciele wraz z grupą dyletantów z wyższych klas walczą ze złowrogimi siłami gangu amerykańskich przemytników, którzy porzucili Nowy Jork i założyli wyrafinowany syndykat przestępczy na południu Francji.Napad, morderstwo, tajne kryjówki, szybkie samochody i piękne kobiety – wsz...

Jedna z wcześniejszych powieści Oppenheima, nieco inna niż jego późniejsza dzieła, z ciemniejszymi motywami i bardziej tragiczną fabułą. Bogaty Anglik, zakochuje się w córce włoskiego arystokraty mieszkającego na wyspie Kruta na Morzu Śródziemnym. Niektórym jednak bardzo nie odpowiada ich związek. Ich bliscy potajemnie spiskują, aby ich rozdzielić.E. Phillips Oppenheim, nazywany w swoim czasie mistrzem wśród twórców powieści kryminalnych i sensacyjnych, był znanym na całym św...

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...

Originally published in 1913, „The Great Impersonation” is probably the most famous spy novel of all time. This tale is full of murder, crime, confused identity, blackmail, war, romance, politics, and there’s even a ghost... In 1913, a German spy assumes a dead Englishman’s identity and infiltrates British society as a sleeper agent, but when he falls in love with the Englishman’s wife and his Hungarian ex-lover recognizes him, he must decide how to deal with the two women ...

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...

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...

Guy Ducaine is a recent graduate of Oxford University. Through a series of unfortunate events he is penniless and starving in the rural town of Brasters. Seeking to make a few shillings, he schedules a lecture on local history. On the same time, Lord Rowchester invites the officer and explorer Colonel Mostyn Ray to the village to speak. Ducaine’s lecture fails and he returns to his small house and collapses from hunger. Found there by Ray, and Rowchesters lovely daughter, L...

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...