The Thirty-Nine Steps - John Buchan

Published by LibriVox. Originally published 1915.
Audiobook released 13-07-2008 by LibriVox. Read by Adrian Praetzellis.

This is the third book by John Buchan I have read (listened to) and also the third starring his protagonist Richard Hannay (the others so far were Greenmantle and The Island of Sheep), yet it is actually the first one of the Hannay stories that he wrote. This is also possibly the most well-known, thanks to Alfred Hitchcock's movie version.

Our hero, Richard Hannay, bored with life in England and dreaming of his earlier days in South Africa, is drawn into an adventure when a neighbour, Frank Scudder, enters his apartment and urgently asks for help. When Scudder is later found dead Hannay goes on the run to avoid the man's killers and to give himself time to solve the mystery of the man's encrypted notebook. 

The book is full of far-fetched coincidences, with perhaps the most extreme being that the place Hannay chooses to escape to at random (Galloway in Scotland) turns out to have one of the conspirators living in the area! However, if you can put aside your disbelief, the book is action-packed and a bit of fun.

And it has an author starting with 'B', which helps for my Alphabet Soup undertaking.

As for the audiobook, as far as narrators go Adrian Praetzellis is quite good. He does the accents well, is clear and easy to follow, and manages to add a bit more to the flow of the story than some other audiobooks I've listened to. One of the better volunteers LibriVox has found.

Completed 16 August 2021.



(Alphabet Soup Books)

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