John Buchan lent a helping hand to the spy mania. In October 1915, just after Loos, he published what became his best-known book (later brought to the screen by Alfred Hitchcock), The Thirty-Nine Steps. In this novel and its sequels, Buchan essentially invented the most popular form of the modern spy story: a daring, athletic hero, chase scenes, friends who turn out to be enemies, enemies who turn out to be friends, coded messages, and grand conspiracies that will destroy everything if the hero cannot escape from a castle dungeon in time. With Britain’s soldiers dug in below ground on a front
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