The Thirty-Nine Steps

In May 1914 Richard Hannay, a mining engineer just back from Africa and bored with London, lets a frightened neighbour into his flat. The man, an American named Scudder, claims to have uncovered a German plot to steal British war plans, involving a secret group called the Black Stone. A few days later Hannay finds him dead on the floor with a knife through his heart, and flees north to the moors of Scotland, chased by both the police and the spies.

John Buchan (1875–1940) wrote the novel in late 1914 while recovering from illness, and published it in 1915; it created the modern thriller of the innocent man on the run, later perfected in Alfred Hitchcock's 1935 film. Buchan was also a historian, a politician and Governor General of Canada. For an older adventure across the Highlands, read Kidnapped.