Skip to main content

Top Mysteries Challenge review: The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan

Year of publication: 1915
Series and no.: Richard Hannay # 1/5
Genre: Thriller
Setting & time: England and Scotland, contemporary

Richard Hannay, having grown up in Rhodesia and now living in London, is bored to distraction by his life in England and seriously considering going back to Africa when his neighbour seeks his help. The man, it turns out, is a spy or an associate of spies, and has important information that will be of no use until a certain date. Until then he must stay alive. This he fails to do and Hannay finds him murdered in his apartment and has to go on the run, under suspicion for the murder and chased by the police and spy gang who killed his neighbour.

This is one of the early espionage thrillers in the modern mold, and as such, one can recognise many of the traits of the modern spy thriller in it.
A review or discussion I read of this novel said that in modern retrospect Hannay comes across as somewhat of a cliché, so I took care to read the book as if I was not deeply familiar with the genre. I found the story remarkably fresh considering its age, although some attitudes come across as old-fashioned – but then again they don’t really: prejudice against the Jewish people is as strong as ever, if slightly more hidden than it seems to have been then, and there still exists a version of the story the neighbour tells Hannay at the beginning, about a Jewish-anarchist plot to start a war, although it has of course changed into something more modern in the interval.

The story is very much plot-driven, but that is not to say that Hannay isn’t a rounded character – he’s such an archetype of the strong, silent and resilient man that some might read him as a stereotype, but his reliance on others and certain other qualities prevent that. Even the people he meets briefly on the road don’t come across as cardboard figures, which is no small feat in a plot-driven story and bears testament to Buchan’s writing skill.

The plot is, of course, wildly improbable, and no-one can accuse Buchan of belonging to the realist school of espionage writing. The plotting can be directly traced to its antecedents which are the adventure tale and the mystery. The story is fast paced and short and makes a fast, breezy and entertaining read. Altogether a very nice ‘boys own’ adventure that will fit nicely on the shelf right beside The Riddle of the Sands. 4 stars.
Labels:

Comments

Eva said…
Masterpiece aired an adaptation of this one that was great fun! But then I found out that the woman character wasn't even in the book, so now I'm not sure if I'd enjoy this one or not. But I do like the sound of real-feeling characters! So maybe I'll give it a go anyway. :)
November 19, 2010 7:39 pm
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Book 7: Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapuściński (reading notes)

-This reads like fiction - prose more beautiful than one has come to expect from non-fiction and many of the chapters are structured like fiction stories. There is little continuity between most of the chapters, although some of the narratives or stories spread over more than one chapter. This is therefore more a collection of short narratives than a cohesive entirety. You could pick it up and read the chapters at random and still get a good sense of what is going on. -Here is an author who is not trying to find himself, recover from a broken heart, set a record, visit 30 countries in 3 weeks or build a perfectly enviable home in a perfectly enviable location, which is a rarity within travel literature, but of course Kapuściński was in Africa to work, and not to travel for spiritual, mental or entertainment purposes (he was the Polish Press Agency's Africa correspondent for nearly 30 years). -I have no way of knowing how well Kapuściński knew Africa - I have never been there...
Post a Comment
Read more

How to make a simple origami bookmark

Here are some instructions on how to make a simple origami (paper folding) bookmark: Take a square of paper. It can be patterned origami paper, gift paper or even office paper, just as long as it’s easy to fold. The square should not be much bigger than 10 cm/4 inches across, unless you intend to use the mark for a big book. The images show what the paper should look like after you follow each step of the instructions. The two sides of the paper are shown in different colours to make things easier, and the edges and fold lines are shown as black lines. Fold the paper in half diagonally (corner to corner), and then unfold. Repeat with the other two corners. This is to find the middle and to make the rest of the folding easier. If the paper is thick or stiff it can help to reverse the folds. Fold three of the corners in so that they meet in the middle. You now have a piece of paper resembling an open envelope. For the next two steps, ignore the flap. Fold the square diagonally in two. Yo...
25 comments
Read more

Bibliophile discusses Van Dine’s rules for writing detective stories

Writers have been putting down advice for wannabe writers for centuries, about everything from how to captivate readers to how to build a story and write believable characters to getting published. The mystery genre has had its fair share, and one of the best known advisory essays is mystery writer’s S.S. Van Dine’s 1928 piece “Twenty rules for writing detective stories.” I mentioned in one of my reviews that I might write about these rules. Well, I finally gave myself the time to do it. First comes the rule (condensed), then what I think about it. Here are the Rules as Van Dine wrote them . (Incidentally, check out the rest of this excellent mystery reader’s resource: Gaslight ) The rules are meant to apply to whodunnit amateur detective fiction, but the main ones can be applied to police and P.I. fiction as well. I will discuss them mostly in this context, but will also mention genres where the rules don’t apply and authors who have successfully and unsuccessfully broken the rules. 1...
9 comments
Read more