The Great Impersonation

De: E. Phillips Oppenheim

Narrado por: Peter Noble

East Africa, 1913. The disgraced English aristocrat Everard Dominey stumbles out of the bush and comes face to face with his lookalike, the German Baron von Ragastein. Months later, Dominey returns to London and resumes his glittering social life. But is it really Dominey who has come back - or a German secret agent seeking to infiltrate English high society?

As international tension mounts and Europe moves closer to war, Dominey finds himself entangled in a story of suspicion and intrigue. He must try to evade his insane and murderous wife as well as escape the attentions of the passionate Princess Eiderstrom - and will eventually uncover the secret of the ghost that haunts his ancestral home.

©2014 The Oppenheim-John Downes Memorial Trust (P)2018 Soundings

Great classic!

Excellent narrator! I did not see the end coming at all. Certainly one of Oppenheim’s best!

A Thundering Good Yarn, Indeed

“'Sir,' said Mrs. Bowles, 'there’s a body in your sitting room.'
'A body?' I’m bound to say that this Phillips Oppenheim-like opening to the conversation gave me something of a shock."

For years, this mention in a P. G. Wodehouse short story was all I knew of E. Phillips Oppenheim. From the context, I assumed he was another of the myriad early 20th Century writers who, like Wodehouse, entertained a ravenous reading public. Now I know he made a very fine job of it.

Amazingly, this tangled tale of double identities, triple agents and divided loyalties was, like all of Oppenheim’s output, dictated to a stenographer—with no plot outline beforehand or revision afterward. Yet it is, in the words of one Audible UK review, “a thundering good yarn” built out of popular tropes of the time—gentlemanly duels, imperial adventurism, high life in country houses, official intrigues and unquiet spirits. There’s even a touch of vintage Golden Age humor here and there. And our reader Peter Noble perfectly conveys the characters and psychological complexities that make this story far more than the sum of its familiar parts. This is escapism of a high order.