Huntingtower

Staid Scots grocer Dickson McCunn, 55, has a plan: Retire early and take it easy. But soon he is swept up in a daring plot to rescue a beautiful princess imprisoned by scheming Bolsheviks in the rambling mansion known as Huntingtower. This fast-moving 1922 thriller by the author of The Thirty-Nine Steps mixes the everyday with the fantastic.

John Buchan (1875-1940), first Baron Tweedsmuir, was a Scottish novelist and member of Parliament, who served as the Governor General of Canada. He wrote many novels as well as books on politics, history, biography, and criticism. But he is best known for his suspense novel The Thirty-Nine Steps, made into a film by Alfred Hitchcock.