The book concerns recently demobbed and down on his luck Major Owston, who becomes the bodyguard of the deformed amoral art collector Martin Hews, Hews is plunged into a bitter rivalry with a gang leader simply known as "Joseph."

The Great Prince Shan By E. Phillips Oppenheim

From Scotland Yard to International Intrigue Malcolm Gossett is a Scotland Yard detective, fed up by the endless conferences and hierarchy of The Yard, he resigns his position and establishes himself as a private investigator, specializing in helping hopeless cases. Clients whom everyone believes to be guilty. There is a great sequence of mysterious cases; International commerce and politics, kidnapping and the international sex trade, Indian succession, jewel theft, and romance. One curious case "The Wise Man from the West" involves the financial gamble of an Asian Leather Consortium, and the beautiful Selah Nissim, daughter of a Singaporean merchant prince. Oppenheim spent many years in the wholesale leather industry, and his description of the warehouses and factories is characteristically accurate. Written in 1933, many of the stories in this collection focus on both personal and global financial problems.

This 1927 novel by Oppenheim revisits the plot device of a young man who comes into a large fortune suddenly and explores the class differences between the lower middle, and the upper class. In South America, a young Englishman steals the wife, baby girl, and money of two contemptible criminals. 15 years later, they come to England intent on revenge. In Norfolk, a young leather salesman, Martin Barnes, is wandering the streets late at night, when he is drawn into a mysterious and imposing house. While there, he is given a huge fortune by Lord Ardrington who is dying, and who wishes to disinherit his undeserving nephew. Suddenly wealthy, Martin begins to experience a change of attitude and inclination. He becomes a sudden snob, turning his nose up at his former friends and quickly abandoning (with cause) his fiancé. Returning to London, Martin meets Gerald Garnham, the disinherited nephew of Lord Ardrington, and Lady Blanche Banningham, beautiful, athletic, bohemian, and sympathetic. How will Martin handle his new fortune? Will the two evil men succeed in revenge against Ardrington and his adopted daughter. Will Martin find love, or even acceptance by society?