I always thought that "The Thirty-Nine Steps" was just another Alfred Hotchcock movie until I discovered the slim hundred-page book by John Buchan of the same name. As the book's Introduction tells me, it is one of five novels which have Richard Hannay as hero, the others being "Greenmantle", "Mr Standfast", "The Three Hostages", and "The Island of Sheep".
"The Thirty-Nine Steps" is significant as being the first true espionage adventure, following "The Riddle of the Sands" by Erskine Childers, which was made into a beautiful movie in the U.K., and also in Germany where it was filmed in the Frisian Islands off the North Sea coast.
Read the book here
I've just copied the above audiobook onto a USB stick to take to bed with me for some four hours of listening pleasure under my electric blanket on this penultimate winter's night. See you all in the morning.
P.S. Don't pick on me for using the word 'penultimate'. I'd never used it either until I worked for the American construction company Bechtel Corporation on Bougainville Island. Americans love big words - well, except for the Donald perhaps - and after one of them had used this word in one of his memos, it spread like wildfire, with some even adding an extra paragraph to their memos so that they could refer to the 'penultimate paragraph'. The words 'penultimate' and 'Bougainville' will be one and the same for me until I draw my penultimate breath.
