Written in the first person, both stories are quite fast-paced, especially The Thirty-Nine Step. It was a thrilling ride following Richard Hannay's adventure, notwithstanding the coincidences that make the story move along, like bumping into the enemy in the wilderness of all places. The Powerhouse can be a bit difficult to follow. ( )

[The Thirty-Nine Steps] probably is most familiar as a movie. Alfred Hitchcock filmed the story first in 1935, and a couple of theatrical releases followed, along with a couple of TV versions. None were true, really, to the novella, which was first published in 1913.

Richard Hannay is back in London after a decade or more in Africa—South Africa and Rhodesia, mostly—where he worked as a mining engineer. He's approached by a nervous neighbor, who spills a cock-and-bull tale of foreign spies spiriting top secret information out of the country, sinister spies who know he knows, who are going to kill him. The neighbor shows Hannay his pocket diary, its pages filled with encrypted notes about the plot. Hannay takes him in, allowing him to sleep in a spare room. Of course, the man is murdered in Hannay's apartment. The villains ransacked the apartment, searching unsuccessfully for the diary, which our hero finds stuffed in his pipe tobacco jar.

Our hero takes off, boarding a train for Scotland. The police are on to him. He doesn't know who he can trust. Lots of chase scenes. In addition to trains, the chases involve planes (well, one plane) and automobiles. He hoofs it over moors and through forests. No winsome ladies become entangled in the plot or with Hannay. Sorry. That was Hitchcock who did that. Hannay does get to employ his mining know-how to blast his way out of the baddies basement, and he does elicit the trust of a bumbling wanna-be politico with relatives in the right places, relatives who get the cops off his back.

The "thirty-nine steps" of the title are the steps that scale the cliffs overlooking the English Channel. The baddies will use the flight with exactly 39 steps to access the beach where a yacht awaits to spirit them—and the top secret information—away. I liked Buchan's original; Hitch changed it, and his version also is good.

The second novella in the book, [The Power-House], was published the same year, 1913. It features a different protagonist, who discovers a sinister plot to take over the world and manages to thwart it. What the plot entails, what will happen exactly, is never articulated. Meh.

Both are 1915 era thrillers and hold up pretty well. The first having been the basis of several films, including an Alfred Hitchcock treatment, and the Powerhouse about urban Guerilla work. This edition is efficient and fits well in the hand. ( )

When Buchan penned The Power-House, he was at the beginning of his fiction career. It had a weak plot which I did not find very interesting. However, when I started The Thirty-nine Steps, I could not put it down. Sure it is full of coincidences which move the plot along but how that plot moves along. There are few dull moments in this mystery. Now I must look for a copy of the sequel, Greenmantel.
One side note. I thought I had read this before but discovered I had not. I have seen the Hitchcock film version many times and thought the plots were the same. Other than the hero's name and the murder in his apartment and maybe the change of roles with the milkman, there is no connection in the two stories. ( )

This book is comprised of two rollicking-good novellas.

In both tales, thd protagonist stumbles upon a plot that would have devastating consequences to the world. These protagonists, however, are no bumbling characters.

Both are pulled out of their comfortable lives, and both display razor-sharp wit and nerve as they desperately race to unravel and foil the plots. In the process, they put their own lives at risk.

I was delighted to find that The Thirty-Nine Steps is one in a series of four books featuring Richard Hannay. I'll be looking forward to reading them all. I still have to investigate whether The Power-House, which features Sir Edward Leithan, is part of a series or not.

These were wonderful, thrilling tales of high adventure, espionage and poltiical intrigue, told with the kind of subtle humor that I find appealing.

I loved this book! It was great fun! ( )