The One with The Thirty-Nine Steps

168. Title & Author: The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan (88 pages)

Genre: Fiction—Classic Literature & Adventure

Completed: 30 November 2010

Summary & Review:

Just as the boredom of city life in London is getting to him, Richard Hannay is approached by a skittish American who warns him of a conspiracy that could throw all of Europe into bloody conflict. After the American is cruelly murdered, Hannay knows that he must carry on in his place to prevent the sabotage about to occur.

This book was very much in the vein of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It was a great adventure filled with twists and turns set in the appealing landscape of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century Britain. I thought it was interesting how Buchan was able to fit such a full-bodied adventure in only 88 pages. If you updated some of the details of the plot, this could easily have been a contemporary thriller that would be 400 plus pages. Buchan was able to distill this adventure down to the necessities, without really losing much of the fun of reading a thriller.

A “thank you” goes out to my grandfather-in-law, John Taylor, who gave this book to me as a Thanksgiving/early-Christmas present. We share some common interests in that he is, like me, both a bibliophile and an Anglophile.

Rating: 8.0