What one reviewer at amazon said about The Four Adventures of Richard Hannay: The Thirty-Nine Steps/Greenmantle/Mr. Standfast/the Three Hostages:
Having read these books only last year awakened in me a sense of appreciation for the World War I period. The plots are heroic, engaging the reader with excitement and suspense. Rather than focus on one dashing figure, the stories, especially Greenmantle, which I liked the very best, bring in a coterie of stalwart individuals and thrust them into incredibly difficult circumstances which test their mettle to the ultimate degree. The integrity and determination of the British and American protagonists makes one admire the gumption and stamina of an earlier era. These books are terrific reads, absorbing and thrilling. It's almost impossible to believe Buchan wrote them so quickly; they must be based on incidents of which he had knowledge as an intelligence officer in the Great War. The author has his biases and makes no attempt to disguise them. He gives the German foe, whom he collectively calls The Bosch
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