Before Alfred Hitchcock made the movie 'The 39 Steps' there
was the novel by author John Buchan. I just got done
reading the book and found that it differed quite a bit
from Hitchcock's movie. In many ways Hitchcock improved
upon the plot. However the book is a pretty good thriller
and you can see why Hitchcock was drawn to this story and
the movie manages to convey the same flavor as the book and
the character of 'Richard Hannay' is the same. You can
download a free copy of the novel,
The 39 Steps. There are other espionage novels by John
Buchan that feature Richard Hannay and I have
listed some of them as free ebooks in the directory.