The 39 Steps (Summarized Edition)

First published in 1915, The 39 Steps inaugurates Richard Hannay, a mining engineer whose London boredom detonates into flight after a murdered freelance spy leaves him custodial to a secret warning of a German plot. Told in taut first-person, Buchan's self-styled "shocker" blends picaresque pursuit across the Scottish Highlands with codes, disguises, and the shadowy cabal of the Black Stone. Its ...