Chap just wants a cigarette and a bit of a chat, and finds himself at the centre of European conspiracy.
Spring 1913: Harry Delamere's mysterious death on a Balkan mountainside is no surprise to anyone - except to Harry Delamere himself, reading the news at home in London. Soon he is at the other end of Europe, seeking the truth in the middle of a war and a web of international intrigue - still alive after all, but for how long?
Murder, mountains, melodrama, assassination, conflagration, more mountains, the great tapestry of continental conflict, death-defying motor-car escapades by night, dangerously heavy lunches, sneering diplomats, monstrous monks, sinister secret policemen, glamorous foreign ladies, treachery, tragedy, and basically it's mountains all around.