Athelstan Digby agrees to look after the old bookshop of Keldstone so that his hosts, can attend a funeral. On the first day of his tenure, three suspicious characters enquire after a copy of The Life and Times of Mr Badman by John Bunyan. When a copy mysteriously arrives in a bundle of books brought in by a scamp, and is subsequently stolen, Digby and his nephew Jim are soon embroiled in a case in which the stakes have risen from antiquarian book-pinching to ruthless murder. A British Library Crime Classic.