The Thirty-Nine Steps (Collins Classics) HarperCollins Publishers

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. `I snapped the switch, but there was nobody there. Then I saw something in the far corner which made me drop my cigar and fall into a cold sweat.` When Richard Hannay is warned of an assassination plot that has the potential to take Britain into a war, and then a few days later discovers the murdered body of the American that warned him in his flat, he becomes a prime suspect. He flees to the moors of Scotland and a spirited chase begins as he is pursued by the police and the German spies involved with stealing British plans. Buchan`s tale unfolds into one of the seminal and most influential `chase` books, mimicked by many, yet unrivalled in the tension and mystery created by his writing. Buchan reveres Hannay as an ordinary man who puts his country`s good before his own and the classic themes of the novel influenced many films and subsequent `man-on-the-run` novels.