The Thirty-One Kings

July 9, 2018
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.

September 15, 2018

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

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