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...
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...
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...
Uncommon Oppenheim novel tells a strong story of the complicated love affairs, thrilling and mystifying revelations in the life of a young occult. Mr. Henry Rochester is an honest and honorable landowner in rural England. One evening he is walking his estate when he happens across the boy who is meditating on a hillside, and after a conversation, takes it into his head to give the boy money and see what he’ll make of himself. Unfortunately, he also tells the boy that if he ...
Lady Wilhemina Thorpe-Hatton lives a life of extraordinary wealth and privilege. She is visiting her extensive estate in England, which includes the town of Thorpe, and all it’s inhabitants. When Victor Macheson, a young man chock full of ideals and theories about how to make the world a better place, petitions her for the use of a barn where he can speak on these subjects, she refuses. He is dismissed and harried out of town by the son of the estate manager Stephan Hurd. B...
This story takes place before WWI and follows the adventures of a disgraced English politician who hasn’t given up on his country in her hour of need. His nemesis is a suave but evil German prince who is plotting the downfall of he British empire. The only thing that stands in his way is our hero... and two beautiful women. „The Mischief-Maker” presents a fascinating picture of the political mindset of the day to go along with the twists and turns of the story. And so on, a...
„The Milan Grill Room” is a series of ten connected short stories featuring the character of Louis, a crippled veteran of World War I and maître d’hôtel, who solves crimes from his table in the Grill Room of the hotel and who is able to provide invaluable assistance to the British police and Secret Service. Tracking spies, catching traitors, uncovering plots, often in the company of Major Charles Lyson of the Secret Service, Louis is never ruffled, and always resourceful. T...
A detective and very mysterious story. Mr. Sabin is called out of blissful retirement to search for his missing wife. He believes Lucille to be kidnapped by members of a secret society of aristocrats. It is interesting to watch Mr. Sabin control himself and walk with such dignity and aristocratic bearing and tact, even as he plots to save his own life and reunite with his beloved Lucille. „The Yellow Crayon” presents a fascinating picture of the political mindset of the day...
The mystery by E. Phillips Oppenheim (1866-1946) starts out in the Sierra Nevada mountains, 500 miles from San Francisco, at a gold mining camp. Bryan came to America from England, chasing a man who may have papers which explain Bryan’s mysterious origins. Enter heroine, the beautiful orphan Myra Mercier who is arriving to the camp where women are not allowed. Murder and mayhem ensue before the pair escapes to San Francisco. Bryan abandons Myra and travels back to England a...
Mystery novel by E. Phillips Oppenheim involving a handicapped art collector. The book concerns recently demobbed and down on his luck Major Owston, who becomes the bodyguard of the deformed amoral art collector Martin Hews. Enabled by his enormous wealth to buy the world’s most beautiful works of art. Hews is plunged into a bitter rivalry with a gang leader simply known as „Joseph”. This is a thrilling and tense story of a struggle between master brains, of gang wars, of d...
Sir Joseph is a brilliant surgeon from Australia who went mad after operating on vast numbers of soldiers during World War 1. His terrible hobby is cutting people’s heads open to steal bits of their brains. His wife is a former nurse who went mad alongside him. They are pursued across England and the continent by Mr. Daniel Rocke, codebreaker of the Foreign service: Miss Ann Lancaster, daughter of one of Londe’s victims, and Sir Francis Worton, known as Q20, head of the sec...
This is another great novel by E. 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. David Newberry is released from Wandsworth prison having served a year for burglary. He was briefly a member of The Lambs, a London gang run by Tottie Green, with the help of the beautiful, coarse, but alluring Belle. Vowing revenge, Newberry buys a gym...
John Peters is the dissolute Crown Prince of Bergeland. The nephew of the rapacious and immoral King. Grace Pellisier is an English American actress who meets a thoughtful, serious, hiker in the mountains of Switzerland. Bernhardt is the energetic Chief of the Secret Service, protecting the aging King, and constantly searching for „The Watcher,” the leader of the revolutionary republicans. Written during a period of intense anti-monarchy which saw the end of the Russian Tza...
Young Maurice Teyl, just turned 21, shy, non-drinker, non-smoker and the richest man in America, has been raised by his rigid Grandmother on a remote ranch in California but he shuns the limelight. So when a world tour is arranged by his guardian he is none too keen. He misses his train to begin the jaunt and meets up with a young English actress, Lucy Compston, and so begins a friendship and the slight deception, as he does not want her to know exactly who he is. He then g...
A novel of crime and conscience by Edward Phillips Oppenheim (1866-1946), the self-styled „prince of storytellers.” „The Profiteers” was written about the stock market post-World War I and pre-1929 crash. The tale of the Bechtel family dynasty is a classic American business story. It begins with Warren A. Bechtel, who led a consortium that constructed the Hoover Dam. From that auspicious start, the family and its eponymous company would go on to „build the world,” from the ...
In the courtroom of Lord Malladene, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Richard Lebur stands accused of murdering his lover’s lover. Lebur is convinced to change his plea to guilty to avoid a death sentence. At the last minute, as he is being taken to jail, he shouts out that he is innocent. Seven years later, Martin Campbell Brockenhurst, Viscount and ex-policeman, with Scotland Yard, pursues the case further, convinces that Lebur is innocent, motivated by his love for Leb...
This 1907 novel was one of the early popular novels of society by E. Phillips Oppenheim. The story revolves around the conflict between a gentleman’s obligation to defend the honor of a lady, and his responsibility to his own feelings, family, and freedom. Sir Wingrave, imprisoned wrongfully for killing a man, finishes his sentence and plans his vengeance against those who would not tell the truth to help him during his trial. He becomes misanthropic, seeking only revenge. ...