Edward Phillips Oppenheim (1866-1946), was an English novelist, in his lifetime a successful writer of genre fiction including thrillers. He composed some 150 novels, mostly of international intrigue. A World War I tale of espionage in a fictional "backwater" area in England with no apparent military value called Dreymarsh. The story begins with Dreymarsh residents discovering an observation car from a German zeppelin along with a Homburg hat near Dreymarsh.