I love almost all of E. Phillips Oppenheim's books, but this one was ridiculous. It started out good like all of his books do, but it soon got very foolish. It was apparent from the very start who the real villain was (I won't give it away in case you still want to read the book), and yet they stretched this book out, escape after escape, life threatening adventure after adventure, until I got to the point where I just couldn't read it anymore. I was 3/4 through the book when I just kept turning page after page without reading them just to get to the end and prove to myself that what I knew from the first 35 pages was correct. The book is utterly ridiculous, right down to the main character's silly little inventions. The book wouldn't have been half as bad if the author would have left out half of the book. Very disappointing. However....don't judge Oppenheim by this "mistake" of a book. His other books are very entertaining and are wonderful reads. I'm just glad this wasn't the first book of his that I read because I would never have read another one. He's a wonderful author.