Other editions of book The Thirty-Nine Steps

The Thirty-Nine Steps is an adventure spy novel by John Buchan written in 1914. Told from the first-person point of view, it relates the adventure of "ordinary fellow" Richard Hannay, who is thrust into a plot involving the theft of crucial military intelligence by German anarchists. Richard Hannay's ordinary life is shattered when he receives a frantic visitor, Scudder, who tells Hannay of a sinister plot by anarchists to assassinate the Greek Premier. Hannay allows the man to stay in his flat to hide out. Scudder writes down the whole plot in a black note book. One day Hannay arrives to the flat to find it ransacked and Scudder dead with a knife in the back. Thinking the police would not believe he was innocent, Hannay becomes a man on the run, pursued under false pretenses by the police and evil anarchists.

"It wouldn’t be pleasant sharing my flat with a dead body, but there was nothing else I could do." Richard Hannay is bored with life in London. Then he discovers a horrible crime and finds himself in the middle of a clever and frightening plot. Can he find the proof he needs to save his country from disaster? When Hannay hides out on the wild Scottish moors, will he escape from the dangerous gang that wants to silence him forever? Who can he trust on his journey? Time is running out for Hannay and his friends. Will he be able to discover the secret of the thirty-nine steps before it is too late?