The Thirty-Nine Steps

'My guest was lying sprawled on his back. There was a long knife through his heart which skewered him to the floor'

Richard Hannay has just returned to England after years in South Africa and is thoroughly bored with his life in London. But then a murder is committed in his flat, just days after a chance encounter with an American who had told him about an assassination plot which could have dire international consequences. An obvious suspect for the police and an easy target for the killers...