The 39 Steps: Book Review

I had long wanted to read John Buchan’s The 39 Steps and finally got around to it. I was pleasantly surprised. I had read other readers' reviews and other commentary that it was redolent with prejudice and very much of its time and as such, that it doesn't hold up well but to be honest, I didn't find that to be so. I found it to be a very entertaining spy thriller.

So, what's it all about? The 39 Steps, published in 1915, is set in the lead-up to World War I. and is told by Richard Hannay, a man approaching middle-age who has spent almost all of his life in the exciting world of South Africa. Yearning for the Old Country, he returns home to England to find himself bored stiff and wanting something exciting to happen.

And it does. A man breaks into his flat and is duly murdered as part of an international conspiracy to start a war. Hannay knows he will be suspected and flees to Scotland, so we get the classic innocent man on the run plot that Hitchcock was so fond of. Hannay must avoid getting caught by the police and the clutches of enemy agents, all the while trying to unravel the secret of the mysterious 39 steps.

The story rattles along as a brisk pace and is filled with narrow escapes and thrilling chases. Reading it, I couldn’t help but think of the film North by Northwest starring Cary Grant and James Mason, especially with the biplane chasing Hannay echoing the crop duster chasing Grant in the film.

I won't say the book is entirely devoid of prejudice - there is the usual (for the time) dislike and distrust of foreigners - but it's not overt and certainly not as bad as some other novels I've read from the same era. So, if you like spy thrillers that aren't too convoluted and that rattle along, then read The 39 Steps.

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