The annual May Day celebrations are an Oxford institution. At 6 a.m. on the first day of May, the Magdalen College Choir gather at the top of Magdalen Tower to give a special performance celebrating the joys of spring. But this year will be a less cosy affair. Just as the singing starts, so does the shooting - and de Valgas, university student and son of a South American dictator, falls down dead. For the journalist Philip Hardman, it is the story of a lifetime - for Chief Inspector Osborne it's a headache he could well do without. Working in a grudging partnershp, little do the two men realise the dangers they will have to face as they unravel the truth of the May Morning affair... Originally published in 1938, this is a vintage murder mystery from the golden age of crime fiction.