The Golden Beast

Edward Phillips Oppenheim (1866-1946) was the earliest writer of spy fiction as understood today, inventing the „rogue male” school of adventure thrillers and writing over 150 novels of all sorts. In „The Golden Beast”, a woman curses her lover’s father, a baron, who had her gamekeeper father hanged. Years afterward, three of the baron’s descendants disappear in a manner that baffles Scotland Yard, appearing they were the victims of that ancient curse. Written in 1925, with a powerful Jewish family as the main characters, there are strong descriptions and anti-Semitic characterizations. The men are greedy, money obsessed, and unattractive. The women are beautiful, alluring, exotic, and immoral.