Publisher's Synopsis
The Great Impersonation is a mystery novel written by E. Phillips Oppenheim and published in 1920. German Leopold von Ragastein meets his doppelganger, Englishman Everard Dominey, in Africa, and plans to murder him and steal his identity in order to spy on English high society just prior to World War I. However, doubts of the returned Dominey's true identity begin to arise in this tale of romance, political intrigue, and a (literally) haunting past. The trouble from which great events were to come began when Everard Dominey, who had been fighting his way through the scrub for the last three quarters of an hour towards those thin, spiral wisps of smoke, urged his pony to a last despairing effort and came crashing through the great oleander shrub to pitch forward on his head in the little clearing. Sir Everard Dominey, living in self-exile in Africa, wakes up after a night of drinking too much whiskey to find himself the guest of Leopold von Ragastein, his doppelganger. The two have many similarities beside their appearance: they both have a natural gift for languages, and Ragastein is also in exile after killing his mistress' husband in a duel. The only major difference between them is that Ragastein is German and therefore EVIL. After spending the night prying into the life of Everard Dominey, Ragastein and his friend, Dr. Schmidt, send Dominey out into the African desert with no water and nothing but extremely salty food, never to be heard from again. Then, taking on the identity of his double, Ragastein goes to England, where he, impersonating Everard Dominey, is in the perfect position to be the greatest and most insidious German spy of all time. But will he have the heart to do what the Kaiser asks of him? And is Everard Dominey really dead?
