This centre section between Scudder’s murder and the dramatic dénouement forms the bulk of the book, and is divided into chapters each of which forms a little story on its own. The story itself is mostly a simple chase round the moorland in the south-west of Scotland, a place Buchan knew well in real life. I found Buchan borderline – it bothered me, but not so much I couldn’t look past it and enjoy the story. This is always a problem with books of this era and sometimes I find it easier to overlook than others, I think based on whether the author simply uses the words or whether it feels as if he really means to be derogatory. Not unnaturally, the Germans don’t come out of it well, and unfortunately neither do the Jews (no Jews actually appear in it, but they’re still referred to in what I wish were outmoded anti-Semitic terms) nor the Southern Europeans – thankfully, it’s been a while since I heard the word “Dago” being used.
Published in 1915, its first audience knew that whatever Hannay did, he didn’t succeed in preventing war, so that couldn’t be the point of the conspiracy or of the attempt to defeat it.
And so the chase is on…īuchan described the book as a “shocker” and that’s basically what it is – what we’d now call an action thriller. When Scudder is then killed, Hannay finds himself possessed of a secret and Scudder’s coded notebook, running from the conspirators who want to kill him and the police who want to arrest him for Scudder’s murder. It’s four weeks until he can reveal what he knows to the authorities, though, and he begs Hannay’s help to keep him hidden till then. Scudder tells him that he’s discovered a conspiracy, one that, if it succeeds, will shake the world. But then a man he doesn’t know turns up at his door seeking help. He’ll give it another couple of days, he decides, and if nothing exciting happens, he’ll return to one of the outposts of Empire.
Richard Hannay has returned from South Africa and is finding England dull. It’s May 1914 and war is looming over Europe.
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