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The 39 Steps (Richard Hannay, #1)

John Buchan

Start date: February 1, 2023

Finish date: February 28, 2023

Discussion: Short Story/Novella Collection

Why we're reading this: February 2023 Short Story Read
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Short Story/Novella Collection

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What Members Thought

Jun 16, 2019 Franky rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: adventure, thriller, mystery, 2019-reading-challenge

John Buchan’s The 39 Steps opens with Richard Hanney having a chance encounter that will soon change to the course of his life. A desperate man named Franklin Scudder (who we realize later is a spy) confides in Hanney that he is running for his life, and then proceeds to relate a wild tale of a plan of espionage and assassination. Scudder goes as far as to say he has also faked his own death to get away from those tracking him.

“It was the wildest sort of narrative, but I had heard in my time ma John Buchan’s The 39 Steps opens with Richard Hanney having a chance encounter that will soon change to the course of his life. A desperate man named Franklin Scudder (who we realize later is a spy) confides in Hanney that he is running for his life, and then proceeds to relate a wild tale of a plan of espionage and assassination. Scudder goes as far as to say he has also faked his own death to get away from those tracking him.

“It was the wildest sort of narrative, but I had heard in my time many steep tales…which had turned out to be true…

Events take a very sharp and drastic turn when Hanney discovers Scudder dead, a knife in his back. Scudder, however, had left behind a notebook. Could this be the key? Hanney vows to take on Scudder’s mission. Yet, he will now be the one who is marked and now in imminent danger:

“Yet, oddly enough, for the first time I felt the terror of the hunted on me.”

I found The 39 Steps to be a very engaging and effectively told thriller. Told from the vantage point of our man on the run, we get inside Hanney’s head as encounters each obstacle and trap set for him and has to try to worm his way out, and use his cunning and wits to escape. Additionally, the frantic pace and tempo that Buchan employs helps to create a thrilling and fun ride. I was reminded a bit of the 1993 film The Fugitive as I read.

Eventually, Hanney soon realizes that there is a mission of much greater import, and that he must try to fulfill his quest. While on the run, Hanney meets an assortment of characters (some allies, some foes) among them a milkman, a literary innkeeper, a roadman, and a sinister old man. There are definite nods to Sherlock Holmes as our hero tries to figure out the one clue that will solve this puzzle, all the while trying to stay alive.

“I felt the sense of danger and impending calamity, and I had the curious feeling, too that I alone could grapple with it.”

The 39 Steps is quite an entertaining and lively yarn, filled to the brim with adventure and intrigue. It has a bit of everything you want in a thriller—spies, espionage, decoding messages, aliases and disguises, frantic pursuits, assassination plots.

Are there some improbabilities and conveniences to aid our protagonist? Yes, there are. But, I felt that these were forgivable because of the entertainment value over all.

Very enjoyable book, and I’m interested in taking on reading the next one in the series, Greenmantle.
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6 likes · Like · see review

Nov 06, 2021 Teri-K rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery, classic, adventure-and-or-suspense, zz-2023-bought, sense-of-place, z-permanent-bookshelf, zz-2023-my-book-club

I've not seen the movie taken from this novella, and I didn't know much about the story except it's a spy novel with a chase scene, but I have a Scottish neighbor who talks about Buchan and how underrated he is, so I wanted to check this out. It's well done, a tense tale of cat and mouse in Scotland.

If it has a weakness it's that I wasn't ever exactly sure what the big risk was, I thought it was trying to keep Britain from going to war, but clearly we know that happened anyway. Another read may ...more

3 likes · Like · see review

Nov 15, 2015 Jeff Koeppen rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: librivox, classics, general-fiction, audio, 2016-read, scotland, mystery

This is a nutty spy-chase adventure which takes place just before the start of WWI. Most of the action is set in the Scottish countryside. It was written over 100 years ago so I was able to listen to it for free through Librovox.

1 like · Like · see review