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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Terrific espionage thriller -- James Bond without the girls,
This review is from: Mr. Standfast (Wordsworth Classics) (Wordsworth Collection) (Paperback)
For those who like good, clean spy-type fun, this is a SUPERLATIVE work. Part three in the adventures of Richard Hannay (which started with Buchan's well-known "Thirty-nine Steps"), this is a first-rate thriller set on the eve of World War I, with plenty of atmosphere and hair-breadth escapes, plus an excellent dogfight climax in the skies over France. Along with everything else, it has some sound theological reflections (the title being a character from "Pilgrim's Progress") about courage and fortitude. Highly recommended.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Richard Hannay, WWI-era British secret agent, saves the day,
By
This review is from: Mr. Standfast (Paperback)
Many spy novels follow the formula set down by John Buchan at the end of WWI - exotic locations, powerful and dangerous enemies, damsels in distress, and secret plots to dominate the world. Buchan's fictitious protagonist, South African Richard Hannay, once did a job for His Majesty's gov't before the war. Now, they've asked for his help again.
Hannay is tasked with going undercover to penetrate a nest of peaceful war objectors to ferret out its suspected German ringleaders. Before long, thanks to Hannay's speaking skills, he is accepted into their group as a persuasive, but simple, speaker. Trailing mysterious figures across the English and Scottish countrysides, literally running into war movie film sets, and escaping on the wings of the wind are just part and parcel of being a secret agent deep undercover. Wanted by both German agents and the local police forces, Hannay may be the hunted, but he is still their hunter as well. However, despite busting the ring and foiling their plan the evil ringleader, Gresson, gets away. And so Hannay returns to his job in the army rising to brigadier general when he receives the call to secret service again. This time Gresson lurks much closer behind the French lines, but remains carefully hidden. Only his saboteur agents seem to be leaving their mark. Hannay amazingly encounters Mary - his true love - breaking into the same suspicious looking chateau as he. Together they join forces to break up Gresson's fiendish plot before it is sprung. However, Hannay is tricked and Mary is captured. Again, like many spy novels after it, the hero is imprisoned in a diabolical way with the villain leaving the hero unattended. However, like always the hero manages to break free, just. In the mountains of Switzerland there still remain a few twists and turn yet to remain. The action in the book is fairly fast-moving, but the characters are purely two-dimensional and the plot is highly predictable. Just like a 007 movie. Reading the book, though, I wasn't able to really get into it, except for a few of the scenes in the first half of the book and the Swiss episode in the last half. A much better series that takes place in the same era is Reilly: Ace of Spies, who is a British spy working in Wilhelmine Germany. Overall, this is a decent book, which serves as a prototype of many spy novels thereafter, especially the sexier James Bond series.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best. Spy. Story. EVER.,
By
This review is from: Mr.Standfast (Paperback)
This is my favourite Buchan book of them all! Although not as tightly-plotted as Greenmantle and The Thirty-Nine Steps, its predecessors in the series, it's still a nail-bitingly exciting adventure story sure to have you hooked for most of the first half and the whole second half. In Part One, Hannay spends some time with artistic types very familiar to those of us who enjoy 'lowbrow' fare, and then spends some time in radical political circles in Glasgow. Although it can be slow, there's lashings of satire to keep you chuckling. Then the plot begins to move--through the Scottish Highlands in a sequence akin to The Thirty-Nine Steps, but with far more characterisation and philosophy than the earlier book. During this time, Hannay realises that he's in love, pretends to be drunk, and impersonates a movie director. (No, it's not one of those spy novels with miserable characters and a depressing plot, in case you were wondering.)
The second half, however, is peerless. The stakes rise, the scene shifts to the battlefields of Europe, and the adventure is non-stop. Hannay must outwit a foe far more intelligent and ruthless than himself, try to pick up the courage to propose to lovely, clever young Mary Lamington, and manage to survive a brutal war. The climax is breathtaking and actually has you fearing for the outcome; moreover, it shows that Buchan was not in fact blissfully unaware of the horrors of trench warfare as many people, reading his optimistic work today, would think.
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