Rach's Reading Club 2024-And Beyond!

The 39 Steps

For my second June book, I chose The 39 Steps by John Buchan. I knew that it had been made into an early film by Alfred Hitchcock which is available on Youtube. It turns out that there have been at least two more films also available on Youtube, and I thought about watching all three of them before writing this review, but I decided that I would just stick with the Hitchcock one.

Anyway, the book takes place in England just before World War I. The protagonist is an unfortunate resident of London, who has a spy come into his flat and suddenly get murdered. The hero then goes on the run from England into the Scottish highlands. The story is by and large a chase through the various locales.

The Alfred Hitchcock movie is actually a pretty big departure from the source. For one thing, there are more female characters then there were in the book. The above mentioned murder victim is a woman rather then a man. Also, the hero later becomes literally stuck to another woman character which is not in the book at all.

In fact, even the meaning of the title, The 39 Steps was changed for some reason.

Oh well, both versions of the story are suspenseful if not memorable. Maybe sometime, I will watch one of the other versions on Youtube.