The thirty-one kings Richard Hannay returns

The first clue is the numbers. Thirty-One Kings springs naturally from The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan's 1915 thriller featuring Scottish-born adventurer, soldier, and spy Richard Hannay. It was blessed with immortality when Hitchcock filmed it in 1935, and Hannay went on to appear in six more novels. He's back now and delightfully so in this pastiche, surrounded by his old gang of patriotic ruffians going about their bloody business with the usual good manners, dry humor, and determination, fighting on to the last bullet, then going down flinging rocks. It begins when a young man dies in Hannay's arms after whispering, Find the thirty-one kings! Germany is about to march unhindered into Paris, and the sudden, murderous attention the Nazi agents focus on Hannay suggests a connection. Tracking it produces a thrill ride that makes most modern actioners seem bloated and lethargic. The idealism is startling: brave men are willing to die for something decent and honest. Did soldiers really talk that way, even in 1940? Never mind. Welcome Hannay back in this crackling thriller.--Don Copyright 2018 Booklist

Heavy melodrama mars this disappointing continuation of John Buchan's early-20th-century Richard Hannay thrillers from British author Harris (The Gravedigger's Club). In June 1940, the former British operative is chafing in retirement, improbably having trouble offering his services, but his time on the sidelines doesn't last long. While on a walking tour of Scotland, Hannay and his wife, Mary, try to aid a pilot whose biplane crashes near them. The pilot recognizes Hannay and imparts a cryptic message: "London trails... latest Dickens... missing page." With his dying breath, he implores Hannay to find "the thirty-one kings." Hannay follows the clues to a London bookstore, Traill's, where an old American friend, John Blenkiron, reveals that some men are conspiring to topple Churchill so as to facilitate reaching an accommodation with Hitler. In order to foil the plot, Hannay must travel to France in search of a Mr. Roland, who has information on the kings that could change "the whole future of the war." Overheated prose doesn't help ("Your death will be slow and ignominious. You will breathe out your last in solitary darkness, knowing that your rashness carried you straight into my waiting hands"). Those unfamiliar with Buchan's originals won't be inspired to seek them out. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

It's 1940, and there's a war on. A pilot's enigmatic dying words about "London trails.latest Dickens.missing pages." trigger a frenetic search for the elusive 31 kings. That's more than enough to nudge Richard Hannay out of what would seem a well-deserved retirement more than 100 years after his introduction in John Buchan's The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915) and 83 years after Hitchcock's classic screen adaptation of 1935. Harris is obviously familiar with all earlier incarnations, but this can stand on its own sturdy legs. The resurrected Hannay is thrust into a world teetering on disaster as Paris is on the brink of capitulation, and only he and the Die-Hards, a ragtag assortment of Glasgow patriots, can hope to prevent it. Have you been feeling as skittish as a kitten in a room full of rocking chairs lately? Help is at hand. This tale of derring-do featuring a bang-up battle against the diabolical Boche can soothe those jimjams. VERDICT Following last year's successful films Dunkirk and Darkest Hour, this novel offers a similar escape into a cushy featherbed of certitudes where steely goodhearted lads square off against evil. Exhibit A for anyone complaining they don't write them like that anymore.-Bob Lunn, Kansas City, MO © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.