The Untitled Richard Hannay 2

'007 meets Tintin meets Sharpe' Damien LewisIt began, as the very best catastrophes do, with a wedding.

When one Richard Hannay - battle-hardened, perpetually bewildered, and constitutionally incapable of minding his own business - stumbles out of the Congolese jungle and straight into a tribal marriage ceremony, he suspects his day is about to get considerably more complicated. He is not wrong. From the fever-bright shores of Lake Tanganyika to the gilded banqueting halls of imperial Berlin, Hannay finds himself entangled in a scheme of breathtaking audacity: to steal a priceless Michelangelo from under the Kaiser's nose - and replace it with a fake - before a masterpiece of Renaissance genius can be deployed as a weapon of war.

At his side: the unflappable Peter Pienaar; the lethally capable Mabika Nkosi; and the mercurial Sandy Arbuthnot, a man equally at home in a cassock, a tailcoat, or a great deal of trouble. Against them: an albino spymaster with a very long memory, a Hungarian count of impeccable manners and murderous intent, and a dessert trolley of fiendish ingenuity.

Outgunned, outwitted, and on one memorable occasion - out-paddled - Hannay is about to discover that the most dangerous game in Europe is not fought in the trenches. It is fought over the pudding course.