This little book is a classic that was published in 1915. For context, it is important to remember that World War I began in July 1914.
It is a fairly simple story: Richard Hannay returns to England from a stint in Africa and finds life in London to utterly boring. He has “made his pile” and has nothing to do. But then a stranger accosts him in his doorway one evening and tells him a fantastic tale that Hannay finds amusing but believable. He takes the man in and listens to his tale, but then, coming home one evening, he finds his guest stabbed to death. Fearing that he will be accused of the murder, Hannay escapes to Scotland. So the story leads on through a bunch of improbable events while Hannay is pursued by both the police and German spies.
Hannay is the narrator of the novel, and it is told entirely from the first person point of view. Hannay is an observant chap and clearly describes the people and the countryside. This book came long before James Bond and sets the stage for how spy novel should be written. To today’s reader, perhaps it seems naïve in its style and the events are coincidental, but the reader can follow Buchan’s thinking as his character moves from place to place and interaction to interaction. In each cliff hanging event, Buchan works out what the options are and then chooses one of them to move the story forward and unravels the riddles posed by the dead stranger in his apartment written in code. It appears the story was written by the seat of his pants.
It would be a fairly simple matter to take the basic elements of the story and pin new clothing on them to use as a template for writing a mystery story. Because the point of view is all from Hannay, there isn’t a lot of mystery to the tale. But it needs to be thought about relative to the time in which it was written. There were German spies in Britain. The country was in a war. Life was uncertain.
Buchan went on to a strong writing and political career, becoming the Governor General of Canada in 1935. This novel is more than what used to be called “a penny dreadful”. It lives on my shelf of classics.