What do you think?
Rate this book
The Double Traitor Annotated
THE DESIRE OF MADAME -It is the desire of Madame that you should join our circle here on Thursday evening next, at ten o'clock. SOGRANGE
229 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1912
5 people are currently reading
51 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 11, 2012
With the police hot on his tail, Peter Ruff decides to turn from a life of crime to the more lucrative (and personally safer) life of a private investigator. With his ties to the underworld and his skill at disguise, Peter is the perfect sleuth. Along with his trusted and beautiful assistant, Violet Brown, Mr. Ruff is brilliantly successful in his new career. As his reputation for solving crime grows, he is noticed and adopted as a leader by a large conglomerate of criminals who have chosen to turn their skills to good. Unfortunately, his success also gains the enmity of many people, including his former fiancee's new husband and a notorious German spy. How he outwits these two men-and others-while satisfying his taste for adventure (and possibly falling in love along the way) is told in this delightful collection of short stories by a mystery writer whose talent, unfortunately, has been forgotten by many people. If you are a fan of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle or Maurice Leblanc or other writers of their ilk, you're sure to enjoy this collection. I certainly did!
June 18, 2018
As The Double Four opens country squire Peter Ruff is summoned to Paris to meet with the mysterious old woman heading the titular organization, with which he has previously been deeply involved. At the meeting he finds the leader on her deathbed, from which she tells him that he is to be her successor--a charge he is reluctant to accept, though it is also clear that he has no choice in the matter. Afterward he is promptly set up in London as grandee Baron De Grost.
Over the course of the story we never get a comprehensive image of just what the origins, purposes and activities of the Double Four are, but it is quite clear that it was at least in part a notorious criminal organization, that it has since distanced itself from such activities, and that its primary concern is now espionage. By and large, this espionage seems to be conducted on behalf of the alliance of Britain and France, against Germany, and it is this which occupies Ruff's time--in particular, his successive battles with German agent Bernadine, the Count Von Hern.
The luxurious atmosphere, the genteel but ruthless and ultimately deadly duel between Ruff and Bernadine, are classic Oppenheim--and so are the plentiful melodrama, hokey plot twists and right-wing propaganda of yesteryear. Less familiar to me was the book's structure. A collection of short stories turned into a cut-up novel, the book is not just loose, but essentially episodic--between the first and last tales Ruff and Bernadine fighting out some issue to a conclusion, and then the book simply returning to them at the outset of the next battle. In fact, the order of several of the stories in the middle could have been rearranged without the reader's experience being compromised.
The fact that the book does consist of so many short bits was initially a bit jarring, so much so that I was tempted to charge them with being more thinly sketched than they should have been. (Like every other reader of my generation, I suppose I've simply--for better or worse--become used to taking my spy fiction in doorstop-length doses.) Still, it was a light, quick read with a pronounced retro interest, perhaps not so satisfying as The Great Impersonation but also suffering from less of that book's weaknesses as well.
Over the course of the story we never get a comprehensive image of just what the origins, purposes and activities of the Double Four are, but it is quite clear that it was at least in part a notorious criminal organization, that it has since distanced itself from such activities, and that its primary concern is now espionage. By and large, this espionage seems to be conducted on behalf of the alliance of Britain and France, against Germany, and it is this which occupies Ruff's time--in particular, his successive battles with German agent Bernadine, the Count Von Hern.
The luxurious atmosphere, the genteel but ruthless and ultimately deadly duel between Ruff and Bernadine, are classic Oppenheim--and so are the plentiful melodrama, hokey plot twists and right-wing propaganda of yesteryear. Less familiar to me was the book's structure. A collection of short stories turned into a cut-up novel, the book is not just loose, but essentially episodic--between the first and last tales Ruff and Bernadine fighting out some issue to a conclusion, and then the book simply returning to them at the outset of the next battle. In fact, the order of several of the stories in the middle could have been rearranged without the reader's experience being compromised.
The fact that the book does consist of so many short bits was initially a bit jarring, so much so that I was tempted to charge them with being more thinly sketched than they should have been. (Like every other reader of my generation, I suppose I've simply--for better or worse--become used to taking my spy fiction in doorstop-length doses.) Still, it was a light, quick read with a pronounced retro interest, perhaps not so satisfying as The Great Impersonation but also suffering from less of that book's weaknesses as well.
December 3, 2013
Series of episodes featuring upper class spy Peter Roff and his enemy.
March 25, 2015
Peter ruff and the double four is very good. It is more like short stories than a novel. I enjoyed it.
August 28, 2025
I enjoyed the first few stories, but halfway through, boredom set in. and the tales became predictable.
December 24, 2014
Another Oppenheim book that I never really got into, I've read four this year I think I'm going to give him a rest for a while, I thought I would like him more than I do. This is a connected collection of short stories about the leader of a secret society (a bit of a rip off of Edgar Wallace's Four just men) pledged to protect England and their German adversary. Most of the stories aren't very good, although I at least liked the last one.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews