If you like period pieces and murder-mysteries with a twist of romance, you will enjoy this book. The protagonist becomes the chief suspect in the murder of Sir Geoffrey Kynaston and must clear his name. Set in Victorian England, there are flashbacks to Italy. Filled with aristocrats, there are colorful characters, too, lending an air of the Dickensian comic relief, ― like the money-obsessed private sleuth. E. Phillips Oppenheim (1866-1946) was an enormously popular and prolific writer of suspense fiction and romance. Notably easy to read, Mr. Oppenheim has few equals among modern English novelists. He is untiring in the invention of mysterious plots, he is a clever weaver of the plausible with the sensational, and he has the necessary gift of facile narrative. (Boston Transcript.) He is a master of the art of telling a story. He has humor, a keen sense of the dramatic, and a knack of turning out a happy ending just when the complications of the plot threaten worse disasters. (New York Times.)

1928. A best-selling author of novels, short stories, magazine articles, translations, and plays, Oppenheim (who also wrote under the name of Anthony Partridge) published over 150 books. He is considered one of the originators of the thriller genre, his novels also range from spy thrillers to romance, but all have an undertone of intrigue. The period of this story is 1940. The book begins: Mervyn Amory, although he had been one of the first to obey the summons of the uniformed attendant with his clanging bell, found the restaurant car of the Blue Train practically full. The head waiter, who knew him by sight, ushered him to a table for two, occupied by one other man. A close shave! the newcomer exclaimed, as he seated himself. I had no idea that the train was so full. People seem to hide themselves in these small compartments. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.