Thirty - Nine Steps

by John Buchan

In this 1915 story--possibly the first modern spy novel--Buchan's perennial protagonist, Richard Hannay, averts the assassination of a world leader. Hanney, an expatriated Scot, returns from a long stay in South Africa to his flat in London. One night he is buttonholed by an American who appears to know of an anarchist plot to destabilize Europe, and claims to be in fear for his life. Hannay lets the American hide in his flat, and returns later to find that another man has been found shot...