Reviewed by
CAPTAIN FRANK CUNNINGHAM:


E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM Great Impersonation

E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM – The Great Impersonation. Hodder & Stoughton, UK, hardcover, 1920. Little Brown, US, hardcover, 1920. Reprinted many times since, including Pocket Book #224, paperback, 1943. Currently in print in various POD editions.

   Sir Everard Dominey, in his twenty-sixth year, leaves England, and after ten years of wandering, turns up in 1913 in German East Africa, where Baron Leopold Von Ragastein, a military commandant, rescues him from death in the bush.

   Dominey and Von Ragastein discover that they knew each other at Oxford, and that the amazing likeness which existed between them in undergraduate days still persists. Then Von Ragastein, who has been ordered to London by the Wilhelmstrasse, determines to make way with the Englishman, assume his identity and enter upon his espionage as Sir Everard Dominey.

   There is a love story of charm and appeal and a mystery that the reader is hardly likely to solve until the last page.

— Reprinted from Black Mask magazine, August 1920.


Bio-Bibliographic Note:   For as much as you might like to know about E. Phillips Oppenheim, check out this website dedicated to him. Quoting:

    “…Oppenheim published over 150 books and countless magazine stories between 1884 and 1946. While most often identified as a mystery writer, Oppenheim’s novels range from spy thrillers to romance. All of them have, however, an undertone of intrigue. Several of his books were published under the pseudonym, Anthony Partridge.”