Sick heart river

Sir Edward Leithen – perhaps the autobiographical of Buchan’s characters – is dying of tuberculosis and has been given a year to live. After this prognosis, Leithen undertakes a profoundly heroic quest from London to the Canadian Northwest, tracking down a missing man who is literally ‘sick at heart’. In the course of this epic journey, Leithen finds redemption for himself.

Sick Heart River is John Buchan’s most powerful novel, completed just days before his death. The rich, authentic descriptions of the rugged Canadian landscape were influenced by a voyage down the Mackenzie River in 1937, at which time Buchan was Governor-General of Canda.