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Ask Miss Mott
"Ask Miss Mott" by E. Phillips Oppenheim. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.
- GenresMystery
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1936
About the author
E. Phillips Oppenheim
647 books79 followersEdward Phillips Oppenheim was an English novelist, primarily known for his suspense fiction.
He was born in Leicester, the son of a leather merchant, and after attending Wyggeston Grammar School he worked in his father's business for almost 20 years, beginning there at a young age. He continued working in the business, even though he was a successful novelist, until he was 40 at which point he sold the business.
He wrote his first book 'Expiation' in 1887 and in 1898 he published 'The Mysterious Mr Sabin', which he described as "The first of my long series of stories dealing with that shadowy and mysterious world of diplomacy." Thereafter he became a prolific writer and by 1900 he had had 14 novels published.
While on a business trip to the United States in 1890 he met and married Elise Clara Hopkins of Boston and, on return to England, they lived in Evington, Leicestershire until the First World War,and had one daughter. His wife remained faithful to him throughout his life despite his frequent and highly publicised affairs, which often took place abroad and aboard his luxury yacht.
During World War I Oppenheim worked for the Ministry of Information while continuing to write his suspenseful novels.
He featured on the cover of 'Time' magazine on 12 September 1927 and he was the self-styled 'Prince of Storytellers', a title used by Robert standish for his biography of the author.
His literary success enabled him to buy a villa in France and a yacht, spending his winters in France where he regularly entertained more than 250 people at his lavish parties and where he was a well-known figure in high society.
He later purchased a house, Le Vanquiédor in St. Peter Port, in Guernsey. He lost access to the house during the Second World War when Germany occupied the Channel Islands but later regained it.
He wrote 116 novels, mainly of the suspense and international intrigue type, but including romances, comedies, and parables of everyday life, and 39 volumes of short stories, all of which earned him vast sums of money. He also wrote five novels under the pseudonymn Anthony Partridge and a volume of autobiography, 'The Pool of Memory' in 1939.
He is generally regarded as the earliest writer of spy fiction as we know it today, and invented the 'Rogue Male' school of adventure thrillers that was later exploited by John Buchan and Geoffrey Household.
Undoubtedly his most renowned work was 'The Great Impersonation' (1920), which was filmed three times, the last time as a strong piece of wartime propaganda in 1942. In that novel the plot hinges around two very similar looking gentlemen, one from Britain and the other from Germany, in the early part of the 20th century. Overall more than 30 of his works were made into films.
Perhaps his most enduring creation is the character of General Besserley, the protagonist of 'General Besserley's Puzzle Box' and 'General Besserley's New Puzzle Box'.
Much of his work possesses a unique escapist charm, featuring protagonists who delight in Epicurean meals, surroundings of intense luxury, and the relaxed pursuit of criminal practice, on either side of the law.
Gerry Wolstenholme
He was born in Leicester, the son of a leather merchant, and after attending Wyggeston Grammar School he worked in his father's business for almost 20 years, beginning there at a young age. He continued working in the business, even though he was a successful novelist, until he was 40 at which point he sold the business.
He wrote his first book 'Expiation' in 1887 and in 1898 he published 'The Mysterious Mr Sabin', which he described as "The first of my long series of stories dealing with that shadowy and mysterious world of diplomacy." Thereafter he became a prolific writer and by 1900 he had had 14 novels published.
While on a business trip to the United States in 1890 he met and married Elise Clara Hopkins of Boston and, on return to England, they lived in Evington, Leicestershire until the First World War,and had one daughter. His wife remained faithful to him throughout his life despite his frequent and highly publicised affairs, which often took place abroad and aboard his luxury yacht.
During World War I Oppenheim worked for the Ministry of Information while continuing to write his suspenseful novels.
He featured on the cover of 'Time' magazine on 12 September 1927 and he was the self-styled 'Prince of Storytellers', a title used by Robert standish for his biography of the author.
His literary success enabled him to buy a villa in France and a yacht, spending his winters in France where he regularly entertained more than 250 people at his lavish parties and where he was a well-known figure in high society.
He later purchased a house, Le Vanquiédor in St. Peter Port, in Guernsey. He lost access to the house during the Second World War when Germany occupied the Channel Islands but later regained it.
He wrote 116 novels, mainly of the suspense and international intrigue type, but including romances, comedies, and parables of everyday life, and 39 volumes of short stories, all of which earned him vast sums of money. He also wrote five novels under the pseudonymn Anthony Partridge and a volume of autobiography, 'The Pool of Memory' in 1939.
He is generally regarded as the earliest writer of spy fiction as we know it today, and invented the 'Rogue Male' school of adventure thrillers that was later exploited by John Buchan and Geoffrey Household.
Undoubtedly his most renowned work was 'The Great Impersonation' (1920), which was filmed three times, the last time as a strong piece of wartime propaganda in 1942. In that novel the plot hinges around two very similar looking gentlemen, one from Britain and the other from Germany, in the early part of the 20th century. Overall more than 30 of his works were made into films.
Perhaps his most enduring creation is the character of General Besserley, the protagonist of 'General Besserley's Puzzle Box' and 'General Besserley's New Puzzle Box'.
Much of his work possesses a unique escapist charm, featuring protagonists who delight in Epicurean meals, surroundings of intense luxury, and the relaxed pursuit of criminal practice, on either side of the law.
Gerry Wolstenholme
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 12, 2025
Miss Mott: Advice columnist and private enquiry agent.
Found Miss Mott in Otto Penzler's "Big Book of Female Detectives" and was sufficiently interested to buy this book of stories. I've always associated Oppenheim with spy thrillers and you can have them. Apparently, he ventured into other genres occasionally.
Miss Lucie Mott is a journalist. Journalism hasn't been welcoming to women and many wanna-be female journalists wormed their way in through writing "women's stuff" (as opposed to hard news stories.) Miss Mott's column "Home Talks" dispenses advice to readers with problems. She's a fount of wisdom about love affairs, social etiquette, housekeeping, and all the other puzzles that plague women.
Now she's branched out into a new service and become an "Information Agent." That's a polite term for a private detective. Her uncle is Superintendent Detective Wragge of Scotland Yard so she has an inside edge on the business of crime and law enforcement.
That's how she meets "Joe Violet" a smooth crook who's known by the odor of violets he leaves behind and by his genius at disguise. The absence of the "n" is important, since "Joe" is the farthest thing from violent. He never carries a gun and is known to be gallent toward the ladies, especially those who are (like Miss Mott) young and pretty.
He's come to object to her sticking her nose into his blackmail of Mr and Mrs Bland Potterson, social climbers who badly want some letters that might prevent Mr Potterson from being offered the knightship he has his heart set on. Miss Mott feels that blackmail is a nasty business. Violet Joe argues the Pottersons are nasty people and deserve anything that happens to them. After she meets them, Miss Mott has to agree. He'd also like her to have dinner with him.
There is attraction on both sides, but it's an uneasy romance. How can the niece of a Scotland Yard detective justify falling in love with a known criminal? How can a criminal (no matter how well-bred) endanger himself by falling in love with a young woman with a direct line to Scotland Yard?
Then another gang member falls for Miss Mott's charms. Unlike Violet Joe, Walter Meredith has no objection to violence. Although born to an aristocratic family, his courting is hardly courtly. When he decides he wants Miss Mott, he simply kidnaps her and marries her while she's unconscious. When she gets away from him, he kidnaps her again. He's a man who's used to getting what he wants and he sees no reason to make an exception in this case.
Meanwhile, Miss Mott must investigate the cases brought to her. People hire her to recover letters which would be an embarrassment to them if made public. A young woman wants her boyfriend followed to find out if he's still engaging in criminal activities, although he's promised her to stop. He does stop, eventually, but it's a bullet, not a promise that does it.
Another young woman has disappeared from her home. Her aunt is indifferent, but the young minister she's been secretly married to for a year refuses to believe that she would voluntarily absent herself from him. Miss Mott looks into it and finds two old women obsessed with religious fervor and jealousy.
Some of the people who seek her services are legit, but others are working for Walter Meredith. Lucy's uncle is worries about her safety and begs her to give up the detecting business. She's unwilling because it's exciting and profitable. Once it's Uncle Wragge who's the target of the gang. He's invited to dinner and too late realizes that an invitation to dinner with that particular host is code for the Kiss of Death. Joe Violet intervenes, of course, figuring to scores some points with his lady-love for saving her uncle's life.
In the game of hunter and hunted, the police hold all the high cards and a smart criminal knows he's living on borrowed time. Slowly, but surely, one by one, the gang members are arrested or shot. Finally only Walter Meredith is left and he must decide if he can go back to being a law-abiding aristocrat or take another way out.
The ending is very typical for a book published in 1937. Love conquers all, even when it creates the oddest of bed-fellows. Miss Mott and the man of her choice walk off into the sunset with Uncle Wragge's blessings.
If you like old mysteries, it's a fun book. Miss Mott is a likable young woman - spirited and intelligent. Violet Joe is a charmer and Uncle Wragge is everyone's idea of a favorite old relative. I enjoyed it.
Found Miss Mott in Otto Penzler's "Big Book of Female Detectives" and was sufficiently interested to buy this book of stories. I've always associated Oppenheim with spy thrillers and you can have them. Apparently, he ventured into other genres occasionally.
Miss Lucie Mott is a journalist. Journalism hasn't been welcoming to women and many wanna-be female journalists wormed their way in through writing "women's stuff" (as opposed to hard news stories.) Miss Mott's column "Home Talks" dispenses advice to readers with problems. She's a fount of wisdom about love affairs, social etiquette, housekeeping, and all the other puzzles that plague women.
Now she's branched out into a new service and become an "Information Agent." That's a polite term for a private detective. Her uncle is Superintendent Detective Wragge of Scotland Yard so she has an inside edge on the business of crime and law enforcement.
That's how she meets "Joe Violet" a smooth crook who's known by the odor of violets he leaves behind and by his genius at disguise. The absence of the "n" is important, since "Joe" is the farthest thing from violent. He never carries a gun and is known to be gallent toward the ladies, especially those who are (like Miss Mott) young and pretty.
He's come to object to her sticking her nose into his blackmail of Mr and Mrs Bland Potterson, social climbers who badly want some letters that might prevent Mr Potterson from being offered the knightship he has his heart set on. Miss Mott feels that blackmail is a nasty business. Violet Joe argues the Pottersons are nasty people and deserve anything that happens to them. After she meets them, Miss Mott has to agree. He'd also like her to have dinner with him.
There is attraction on both sides, but it's an uneasy romance. How can the niece of a Scotland Yard detective justify falling in love with a known criminal? How can a criminal (no matter how well-bred) endanger himself by falling in love with a young woman with a direct line to Scotland Yard?
Then another gang member falls for Miss Mott's charms. Unlike Violet Joe, Walter Meredith has no objection to violence. Although born to an aristocratic family, his courting is hardly courtly. When he decides he wants Miss Mott, he simply kidnaps her and marries her while she's unconscious. When she gets away from him, he kidnaps her again. He's a man who's used to getting what he wants and he sees no reason to make an exception in this case.
Meanwhile, Miss Mott must investigate the cases brought to her. People hire her to recover letters which would be an embarrassment to them if made public. A young woman wants her boyfriend followed to find out if he's still engaging in criminal activities, although he's promised her to stop. He does stop, eventually, but it's a bullet, not a promise that does it.
Another young woman has disappeared from her home. Her aunt is indifferent, but the young minister she's been secretly married to for a year refuses to believe that she would voluntarily absent herself from him. Miss Mott looks into it and finds two old women obsessed with religious fervor and jealousy.
Some of the people who seek her services are legit, but others are working for Walter Meredith. Lucy's uncle is worries about her safety and begs her to give up the detecting business. She's unwilling because it's exciting and profitable. Once it's Uncle Wragge who's the target of the gang. He's invited to dinner and too late realizes that an invitation to dinner with that particular host is code for the Kiss of Death. Joe Violet intervenes, of course, figuring to scores some points with his lady-love for saving her uncle's life.
In the game of hunter and hunted, the police hold all the high cards and a smart criminal knows he's living on borrowed time. Slowly, but surely, one by one, the gang members are arrested or shot. Finally only Walter Meredith is left and he must decide if he can go back to being a law-abiding aristocrat or take another way out.
The ending is very typical for a book published in 1937. Love conquers all, even when it creates the oddest of bed-fellows. Miss Mott and the man of her choice walk off into the sunset with Uncle Wragge's blessings.
If you like old mysteries, it's a fun book. Miss Mott is a likable young woman - spirited and intelligent. Violet Joe is a charmer and Uncle Wragge is everyone's idea of a favorite old relative. I enjoyed it.
December 16, 2018
This has a fun premise. Ask Miss Mott is an advice column written by ... of course, Miss Mott.She's doing well enough to have an enquiry business on the side in order to dig deeper into answers for some of the questions she's asked. This brings her to the attention of Violet Joe, a gentleman burglar who is also a very attractive fellow indeed. Unfortunately he's not in many of the stories and the rest weren't interesting enough to make the collection live up to the promise of the first couple stories of the collection.
July 20, 2022
Ask Miss Mott is about the very charming Miss Lucy Mott, advice columnist and moonlighting detective. It was written in 1935 and the storytelling suffers from having a vivid protagonist who is given very little to do except get rescued by dashing yet sketchy menfolk. My particular copy was once owned by Lucille A. Sundar, who hopefully was given more to do in life than her namesake. In my head I can think of several more satisfactory storylines for Miss Mott than she got here. She deserves better.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews