The 39 Steps

by John Buchan • 1915

Published in 1915, this is still, for my money, one of the best spy thrillers ever written. Introducing the adventurous and thoroughly British Richard Hannay, it carries the reader through one exciting escapade after another, with a genuine atmosphere of threat and fear pervading every chapter. The hero's flight from pursuers through the hills of Scotland, his vital ability to blend in with his surroundings in times of peril to save his life, his encounters with the arch-enemy, his ingenuity in escaping from certain death, and the last thrilling rush to discover the secret of the 39 Steps themselves before it is too late, never fail to enthral. Yes, by modern standards it is perhaps a little jingoistic, but what book written at the outbreak of World War I was not? A book should never be judged by the opinions of later times. One can only ask why, why, WHY the directors of so many film and TV versions always find it necessary to change that original ending for something silly or over-melodramatic. John Buchan's mysterious steps were a stroke of genius - actors hanging from the hands of Big Ben or falling off boat piers are just silly. We still await a filmed version that is true to Buchan's masterpiece.