The Great Secret

By E. Phillips Oppenheim

Mr. Hardross Courage is a wealthy young Englishman whose life has been carefree and uneventful. He plays cricket for his county, he attends to the management of his estates, he serves as a local magistrate. He has never taken any interest in a career of any sort. On a trip to London to participate in a cricket match, Hardross is confronted by a man who forces his way into his hotel room imploring him to hide him. His reason, “They want to kill me.” So begins a tale that is likely to change Hardross’ idyllic life forever to one of mystery and espionage. The Great Secret is an entertaining tale of adventure. If you have a fondness for early 20th century spy fiction you should find this to be an entertaining read.

• Language: English
• Publisher: SIN Libris Digital
• Release date: May 15, 2019
• ISBN: 9788834112175

E. Phillips Oppenheim

E. Phillips Oppenheim (1866-1946) was a bestselling English novelist. Born in London, he attended London Grammar School until financial hardship forced his family to withdraw him in 1883. For the next two decades, he worked for his father’s business as a leather merchant, but pursued a career as a writer on the side. With help from his father, he published his first novel, Expiation, in 1887, launching a career that would see him write well over one hundred works of fiction. In 1892, Oppenheim married Elise Clara Hopkins, with whom he raised a daughter. During the Great War, Oppenheim wrote propagandist fiction while working for the Ministry of Information. As he grew older, he began dictating his novels to a secretary, at one point managing to compose seven books in a single year. With the success of such novels as The Great Impersonation (1920), Oppenheim was able to purchase a villa in France, a house on the island of Guernsey, and a yacht. Unable to stay in Guernsey during the Second World War, he managed to return before his death in 1946 at the age of 79.