The Three Hostages - John Buchan

I really enjoy John Buchan's Richard Hannay thrillers so it was great to realise that the fourth novel, The Three Hostages, was published in 1924 so I could read it as part of Simon & Karen's 1924 Club. Even better, I had the book on the shelf & as an eBook so I wasn't tempted to buy a copy.

Richard Hannay is settled at Fosse, his home in the Cotswolds. The War is long over, he's married to Mary & they have a son, Peter John. Hannay wants nothing more than to spend his days fishing & working on his estate. He's vegetating with a vengeance.

... the place wanted a lot of looking to, for it had run wild during the War, and the woods had to be thinned, gates and fences repaired, new drains laid, a ram put in to supplement the wells, a heap of thatching to be done, and the garden borders brought back to cultivation. I had got through the worst of it, and as I came out of the Home Wood to the lower lawns and saw the old stone gables that the monks had built, I felt that I was anchored at last in the pleasantest kind of harbour.

So he's less than happy when he's contacted by his old boss, Macgillivray, who wants his help in solving a mystery involving an international crime syndicate. Macgillivray's men are about to round up the members of the syndicate but, as extra insurance, they've taken three hostages. Adela Victor, daughter of a rich banker; Lord Mercot, heir to the Duke of  Alcester & David Warcliff, the eight year old son of soldier & administrator Sir Arthur. On the face of it, there seems to be no connection between the three cases & Hannay is reluctant to become involved. His conscience begins to bother him, particularly about young David after a visit from Sir Arthur & eventually he agrees to help. The only clue he has is a piece of doggerel, six lines of verse about the fields of Eden & a blind spinner, sent to the fathers of each of the hostages. The lines trigger the recollection of a conversation, half-remembered by Hannay's friend, local doctor Tom Greenslade, & this sets him off on the trail of a criminal mastermind who is too subtle to use physical violence but instead steals the souls of his victims through hypnosis.

Hannay's trail leads him from the dining clubs of London to a seedy dance hall, the fjords of Norway & eventually the Highlands of Scotland. He's under pressure to locate the hostages before midsummer when Macgillivray will tighten the net & swoop on the gang. The hostages must be released at the same time as the gang is arrested or they will certainly be killed. Along the way, Hannay meets up with his former colleagues, Sandy Arbuthnot & Archie Roylance. I was also glad to see that Mary has a pivotal role to play. She was such an integral part of the adventure in the previous Hannay novel, Mr Standfast, & I was a little perturbed when she seemed to have dwindled into a wife & mother in this book while Hannay went off adventuring. I needn't have worried as Mary's abilities & intelligence are crucial in the unravelling of the plot & the discovery of the hostages. The mastermind of the conspiracy is truly frightening with his ability to subordinate the will of others & his total single-mindedness is well-hidden under a facade of urbane charm. As Sandy tells Hannay,

"There's such a thing, remember, as spiriting away a man's recollection of his past, and starting him out as a waif in a new world. I've heard in the East of such performances, and of course it means that the memory-less being is at the mercy of the man who has stolen his memory."

John Buchan is so good at writing a tight, fast-moving thriller but what I enjoy almost as much as the plot (& there is a fantastic twist near the end that I didn't see coming) is his sense of place. His descriptions of Scotland are always gorgeous but Hannay's home in the Cotswolds & the trip to Norway are just as evocative. I especially enjoyed the peace of Fosse as the still centre of all the chaos around the chase. It becomes a metaphor for England's place in a world still recovering from the Great War & reluctant to become involved in the world's woes. Hannay is so very noble, his stiff upper lip barely trembles except when he thinks of young David Warcliff or thinks his family is in danger. There are a few distasteful references to race & eugenics (the shape of the villain's head is seen as a sign of his degeneracy) but such references are of their time & if you read books published in the early 20th century, you have to accept, or at least learn to discount, the attitudes of the time. I loved The Three Hostages as an atmospheric thriller & I'm so pleased that the 1924 Club inspired me to read it.

John Buchan's sister, Anna, wrote under the name O Douglas. She also published a book in 1924, Pink Sugar, & I reviewed it several years ago here.

Blogging, rereading, catching up

My blogging has slowed down since the New Year as I find I'm in the mood for rereading & trying to catch up with some of the many magazines & journals I subscribe to but never seem to read. I reread Gaudy Night last weekend for at least the tenth time but I've already blogged about it here. I've also reread Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time which I posted about here. I'm also planning to reread Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth as I've been reading lots of reviews & articles about the new movie version & I'd like to read the book again before the movie is released. I especially enjoyed this article about Brittain & two other novelists who were profoundly affected by the War - Naomi Mitchison & Rebecca West. I'm much more enthusiastic about West's novel, The Return of the Soldier, than the author of the article although I haven't read much more of her work. I think it's a remarkable novel about a man suffering from shell shock & the women in his life. It was made into a movie in the 80s with Glenda Jackson, Julie Christie & Alan Bates.

I'm reading Fortunata and Jacinta by Benito Pérez Galdós for my 19th century bookgroup. I'm enjoying it very much but we're reading 100pp instalments every week & the print in this Penguin edition is very small... Galdos was the Spanish Dickens or Balzac. If I'd grown up in Spain I would no doubt have read one of his novels instead of Great Expectations but he's barely known in the English speaking world & only a few of his novels are in print. Dani at A Work in Progress recently reviewed another of his novels, Tristana.

I love magazines & my library subscribes to Zinio so I have access to lots of wonderful magazines. The only trouble is finding time to read them. Here's just some of my 2014 magazines yet unread.

And here are this year's already piling up. Well, they're piling up in a digital way. Is there a word for that?

At least they're invisible. Here are the physical magazines & journals weighing down the coffee table.

I'd like to do some reading around a couple of anniversaries this year. I've already mentioned my Year of Carol Shields but it's also the 200th anniversary of Anthony Trollope's birth & the 75th anniversary of John Buchan's death. I've started on Trollope by reading John Caldigate & I have lots of books by both authors on the tbr shelves.

I've started the year well in terms of not buying books. As I'm rereading, I don't need to buy books, do I? Well, that's the theory & so far it's working. I do still have a few preorders that will arrive over the next few months & there are some very tempting books published this year so I may find myself putting in an order around my birthday. How else would I celebrate? The Penguin Monarchs series is very tempting - short biographies of every British monarch from Athelstan to Elizabeth II. The first six titles have just been published. I'm especially looking forward to John Guy on Henry VIII (one of the first six), Rosemary Horrox on Richard III, Helen Castor on Elizabeth I, Clare Jackson on Charles II & Jane Ridley on Queen Victoria.

The next Crime Writers Association anthology, edited by Martin Edwards, looks fascinating as it's true crime written by the Golden Age authors & in May, Martin's book about the Golden Age authors will be published (I confess, I've already preordered this one). Also in April is John Ashdown-Hill's book on the reputation of Richard III. Alison Weir's next subject is Margaret Douglas, mother of Lord Darnley & at one time, heir to the throne when her uncle, Henry VIII, had disinherited his own daughters. The Brontë Cabinet by Deborah Lutz is a biography of the family through the objects they owned. Claire Harman's biography of Charlotte Brontë is due in October, just in time for the 200th anniversary celebrations next year. Lucasta Miller (author of The Brontë Myth) is writing a biography of Victorian poet, LEL, Letitia Elizabeth Landon, & I read somewhere that it may be published this year as well. That's probably enough to be going on with!

So, I may be blogging less than usual but I'll still be reading just as much.

Huntingtower - John Buchan

Dickson McCunn is a well-to-do Glasgow grocer who wakes up on the morning after he retires from business & decides to take a walking tour. His wife is on one of her regular visits to a hydropathic spa & Dickson is at a loose end. He sets off in high spirits to explore Carrick but soon finds himself involved in adventures he could never have dreamt of.

Dickson meets John Heritage, a Modernist poet who is drifting at a loose end, dreaming of a beautiful Russian princess he knew slightly when he was stationed in Rome during the War. The two men arrive in Dalquharter, a village near the coast & find lodgings with Phemie Morran after being rebuffed by a surly innkeeper. Exploring the area, they come across a large, modern house with a much older derelict tower called Huntingtower. Heritage is amazed to hear a voice he knows singing a song he's heard before. It's the Russian princess, Saskia, & Heritage & McCunn soon discover that she's been kidnapped by henchmen of her great enemy who has been chasing her all over Europe. Saskia has been helping the opponents of the Bolshevik regime & she has a fortune in jewels to pass on to a man she has come to meet. The owner of Huntingtower had been her friend in Rome &, although he's now dead, he had told her of his remote house in Scotland & so, when she needed a bolt hole, she headed for it. Her fellow conspirator, Alexis, is on his way but unfortunately, there's no sign of him yet &, in the meantime, she must hold out against the threats of her captors as they wait for their leader to arrive.

Heritage & McCunn decide that Saskia must be rescued & they're aided by the Gorbals Die-Hards, a group of Glasgow street kids who have formed their own irregular scout troop. Led by their Chieftain, Dougal, the Die-Hards have scraped together the money for a field trip with the help of various Glasgow beneficiaries, including McCunn. The Die-Hards are an efficient fighting force with Dougal having absorbed everything he possibly can about military strategy & tactics. Their hardscrap lives on the streets of Glasgow are perfect training for reconnaissance missions in the Scottish countryside. McCunn & Heritage are sworn into the troop with an oath & Dougal tells them what he's discovered about the mystery at Huntingtower & his plans to rescue Saskia. The plan culminates in a battle between the Die-Hards, Heritage, McCunn, local landowner Sir Archibald Roylance & his staff of war wounded men & Mrs Morran against Saskia's jailers & the reinforcements who arrive in a Danish brig with their leader, Paul Abreskov, who wants not only the jewels but Saskia herself.

Huntingtower is a great adventure yarn. Buchan is so good at this type of story with a fast moving plot, international conspiracies, evil villains & heroes motivated by honour & the rules of fair play. Dickson McCunn is a very sympathetic hero. He is drawn to Saskia because she reminds him of his long-dead little daughter & he surprises himself with his stamina trekking through the countryside & his readiness to break the law in a good cause. I love the descriptions of the countryside in Buchan's novels. Scotland is always a major character & his Scots characters (even when their dialect is almost impenetrable) are always wonderful. Mrs Morran is a delightful woman, practical, intrepid & very definite in her opinions. She's also an excellent cook. Sir Archibald only has a minor role but he's a fully realised & very sympathetic character. A man who served in the Royal Flying Corps & was badly wounded just before the war ended, he's now lame & frustrated with it. John Buchan's novels are similar to his sister, O Douglas's, novels in this portrayal of life after WWI. There's a sense of melancholy in the lives lost & the very different future for the men who came back wounded.

I was prompted to read Huntingtower because it features in a new series of podcasts by Kate Macdonald at Why I Really Like This Book on books published in 1922. You can download the podcast or listen to it here. There are two more novels featuring Dickson McCunn & the Gorbals Die-Hards, Castle Gay (1930) & The House of the Four Winds (1935) & I'm looking forward to reading them.

I read Huntingtower on my e-reader so I didn't have this beautiful cover (picture from here) on my copy.

Mr Standfast - John Buchan

Serendipity has led me to another book from the tbr shelves. I follow mystery writer Kerry Greenwood on Facebook & she mentioned that she thought John Buchan was an excellent novelist, much better than his contemporaries, & that Mr Standfast was the best war novel & The Three Hostages the best detective story. I have the Penguin Complete Richard Hannay on the tbr shelves so I immediately started reading Mr Standfast & it was certainly an exhilarating ride.

Richard Hannay - soldier, spy catcher, detective - is John Buchan's most famous character. He first appears in The Thirty-Nine Steps, a book that has been adapted for film & television many times since it was published in 1915. Most of the adaptations depart from the book quite a bit I've never understood why film makers do this. (Don't ever get me started on the latest Miss Marple travesties!) so I'd recommend that you read the book first so that at least you can see what they've changed. I've also read Greenmantle, the next Hannay adventure, & Mr Standfast is the third.

Mr Standfast was published in 1919 & the action takes place during WWI. Hannay has been serving with his regiment on the Western Front when he is suddenly summoned home by the War Office & given an important mission that will take him out of the front line for a while. He's not particularly happy about this & even less happy when he realises that his role will be as an anti-war peace activist. His old Intelligence boss, Bullivant, sends him off to stay at Fosse Manor near Isham to get a lead on a very dangerous man, Moxon Ivery - or at least, that's what he calls himself. Hannay has assumed his old alias, Cornelius Brand, & while at Fosse Manor, he meets Mary Lamington & falls instantly in love. Mary, however, isn't just the token love interest. She's part of Bullivant's intelligence network & is a bright, resourceful young woman who has a crucial part to play in the narrative.

Ivery is posing as one of the anti-war crowd but in reality he's a German spy sending intelligence back to Berlin through an elaborate network of informants & rendezvous in remote locations. I won't even try to describe Hannay's adventures which include dodging the police in the wilds of Scotland after getting himself involved with industrial politics in Glasgow, being trapped in a cage in an impregnable cellar in Switzerland (he shoots his way out of that one in a very surprising way) & trekking over an Alpine pass in the middle of winter in six hours. He even finds himself taking over as director of a war film & using his abilities as a commander of men to foil his pursuers. Every escapade is breathtaking & because the narrative is in the first person, we're right there with Hannay as he makes his discoveries & escapes from his enemies. In between, Hannay returns to his regiment in France & even comes across a lead on Moxon & his cronies at a chateau in Picardy.

Hannay's old friends from previous adventures are much in evidence. Blenkiron, the brash American engineer, is now high up in the Intelligence Service & he's the one who explains the background to Hannay & pulls strings for him. Peter Pienaar has joined the Royal Flying Corps & is having a wonderful time as a crack pilot until he is shot down, badly wounded & taken prisoner. The final confrontation between Hannay & Ivery (who reveals himself as the Graf von Schwabing) is a classic standoff between good & evil, highlighted by the fact that Ivery is also in love with Mary (who had been nursing in France) & planning to kidnap her & take her back to Germany. He hasn't counted on the resourcefulness of either Hannay or Mary & his eventual fate is poetic justice.

The title refers to a character in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress & the book is referred to many times by Hannay, Peter & Mary. Peter in particular becomes absorbed in Bunyan & the Bible during his imprisonment as he comes to terms with his injuries. His badly damaged leg means that he will never fly again. Peter is repatriated to Switzerland & that's where he meets up with Hannay. The scenes between the two old friends are very moving. I have to wonder though whether George Lucas had Peter in mind when he wrote the final scenes of the first Star Wars movie.  I was reminded of those scenes very strongly.  

Mr Standfast is the kind of novel that you race through without getting too bogged down in detail. So much happens so quickly that it's impossible to work it all out anyway. Buchan is always at home in Scotland & these scenes were the most vivid. The Scots characters like Andrew Amos & Geordie Hamilton just leap off the page with their humour & impenetrable dialect. I enjoyed reading Mr Standfast very much & I look forward to reading the last two Hannay novels, The Three Hostages & The Island of Sheep, very soon.