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Recommendations based on The 39 Stepsby John Buchan
* statistically, based on millions of data-points provided by fellow humans
The Woman in White
by Wilkie Collins
A thrilling mystery of secrets and hidden identities, with a hero on a quest for the truth.
Walter Hartright, a young art teacher, encounters and gives directions to a mysterious and distressed woman dressed entirely in white, lost in London; he is later informed by policemen that she has ... (Wikipedia)
Kidnapped
by Robert Louis Stevenson
A young man's thrilling escape from kidnappers and the pursuit of justice.
The main character and narrator is 17-year-old David Balfour. (Balfour is Stevenson's mother's maiden name.) His parents have recently died, and he is out to make his way in the world. He is given a ... (Wikipedia)
The Time Machine
by H.G. Wells
A scientist travels through time, discovering the future of mankind.
The book's protagonist is a Victorian English scientist and gentleman inventor living in Richmond , Surrey , identified by a narrator simply as the Time Traveller . Similarly, with but one exception ... (Wikipedia)
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
by John le Carré
A retired spy is called back into action to uncover a mole in the British Secret Service.
Control , chief of the Circus, suspects one of the five senior intelligence officers at the Circus to be a long-standing Soviet mole and assigns code names with the intention that should his agent ... (Wikipedia)
The Day of the Jackal
by Frederick Forsyth
An assassin attempts to kill the president of France in a thrilling race against time.
The book begins in 1962 with the (historical) failed attempt on de Gaulle 's life plotted by, among others, Lieutenant-Colonel Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry in the Paris suburb of Petit-Clamart : ... (Wikipedia)
The Day of the Triffids
by John Wyndham
A post-apocalyptic world overrun by carnivorous plants, exploring themes of survival and morality.
In 1951 John Wyndham published his novel The Day of the Triffids to moderate acclaim. Fifty-two years later, this horrifying story is a science fiction classic, touted by The Times (London) as having ... (Goodreads)
A Study in Scarlet
by Arthur Conan Doyle
A masterful detective unravels a mysterious crime and its hidden motives.
In 1881, Doctor John Watson has returned to London after serving in the Second Anglo-Afghan War . He visits the Criterion Restaurant and runs into an old friend named Stamford, who had been a dresser ... (Wikipedia)
The Third Man
by Graham Greene
A British writer's adventure to post-war Vienna, uncovering the truth behind a mysterious death.
The American Western writer Holly Martins arrives in post– Second World War Vienna (which has been divided between the Allies : the Americans , British , French , and Soviets ) seeking his childhood ... (Wikipedia)
The Return of Sherlock Holmes
by Arthur Conan Doyle
Reunited with his trusted companion, the legendary detective solves a series of mysterious cases.
'Holmes,' I cried. 'Is it really you? Can it indeed be that you are alive? Is it possible that you succeeded in climbing out of that awful abyss?' Missing, presumed dead, for three years, Sherlock ... (Goodreads)
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
by Robert Louis Stevenson
A man's internal struggle between good and evil forces, as he attempts to reconcile his dual personalities.
Gabriel John Utterson and his cousin Richard Enfield reach the door of a large house on their weekly walk. Enfield tells Utterson that months ago, he saw a sinister-looking man named Edward Hyde ... (Wikipedia)
The Ipcress File
by Len Deighton
A British spy investigates a brainwashing scheme. Full of twists and turns, it's a classic espionage thriller.
The novel is framed as the unnamed protagonist delivering his personal report on "the IPCRESS affair" directly to the Minister of Defence , thus making the novel itself the 'IPCRESS File' of the ... (Wikipedia)
The Odessa File
by Frederick Forsyth
The uncovering of a sinister Nazi plot, while searching for the truth of a young boy's death.
In November 1963, shortly after the assassination of John F. Kennedy , Peter Miller, a German freelance crime reporter, follows an ambulance to the apartment of Salomon Tauber, a Holocaust survivor ... (Wikipedia)
The Hound of the Baskervilles
by Arthur Conan Doyle
A thrilling detective story of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson as they investigate a mysterious murder on the moor.
Dr James Mortimer calls on Sherlock Holmes in London for advice after his friend Sir Charles Baskerville was found dead in the yew alley of his manor on Dartmoor in Devon . The death was attributed ... (Wikipedia)
Treasure Island
by Robert Louis Stevenson
A thrilling adventure of a young boy and a crew of rogues in search of buried treasure.
An old sailor named Billy Bones comes to lodge in the rural Admiral Benbow Inn on the Bristol Channel , in England. He tells the innkeeper's son, Jim Hawkins , to keep a lookout for "a one-legged ... (Wikipedia)
The Moonstone
by Wilkie Collins
A mystery novel, unraveling the secrets of an ancient Indian diamond.
Colonel Herncastle, an unpleasant former soldier, brings the Moonstone back with him from India where he acquired it by theft and murder during the Siege of Seringapatam . Angry at his family, who ... (Wikipedia)
Silas Marner
by George Eliot
A tale of redemption and a search for a lost love, set in a rural English village.
The novel is set in the early years of the 19th century. Silas Marner, a weaver, is a member of a small Calvinist congregation in Lantern Yard, a slum street in Northern England . He is falsely ... (Wikipedia)
The Screwtape Letters
by C.S. Lewis
A series of letters between two devils, providing a window into human nature and morality.
The Screwtape Letters, by C.S. Lewis is a classic masterpiece of religious satire that entertains readers with its sly and ironic portrayal of human life and foibles from the vantage point of ... (Goodreads)
The War of the Worlds
by H.G. Wells
A Martian invasion of Earth, exploring the limits of human resilience.
The narrative opens by stating that as humans on Earth busied themselves with their own endeavours during the mid-1890s, aliens on Mars began plotting an invasion of Earth because their own resources ... (Wikipedia)
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
by Agatha Christie
A classic murder mystery, uncovering the truth behind a suspicious death.
On the morning of 18 July, the household at Styles Court wakes to the discovery that Emily Inglethorp, the elderly owner, has died. She had been poisoned with strychnine . Arthur Hastings, a soldier ... (Wikipedia)
The Nine Tailors
by Dorothy L. Sayers
A murder-mystery set in rural England, featuring an amateur detective and a series of perplexing clues.
Stranded after a car accident in the Fenland village of Fenchurch St. Paul on New Year's Eve, Lord Peter Wimsey helps ring a nine-hour peal on the church bells overnight after William Thoday, one of ... (Wikipedia)
The Eagle Has Landed
by Jack Higgins
A daring mission to kidnap Winston Churchill from his English home in World War II.
In November of 1943, an elite team of Nazi paratroopers descends on British soil with a diabolical goal: to abduct Winston Churchill and cripple the Allied war effort. The mission, ordered by Hitler ... (Goodreads)
Three Men in a Boat
by Jerome K. Jerome
Three friends and a dog embark on a whimsical boat journey down the Thames, encountering unexpected adventures and mishaps.
A comic masterpiece that has never been out of print since it was first published in 1889, Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat includes an introduction and notes by Jeremy Lewis in Penguin ... (Goodreads)
East of Eden
by John Steinbeck
Exploration of the timeless struggle between good and evil, set against a backdrop of a family saga.
In his journal, Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck called East of Eden “the first book,” and indeed it has the primordial power and simplicity of myth. Set in the rich farmland of California’s Salinas ... (Goodreads)
Winter in Madrid
by C.J. Sansom
A spy thriller set during the Spanish Civil War, uncovering hidden truths and secrets.
After his recovery, Dunkirk veteran Harry Brett is recruited by the British Secret Service to make contact with Sandy Forsyth, a shady Madrid -based British businessman and a former school friend. ... (Wikipedia)
The Prisoner of Zenda
by Anthony Hope
A thrilling adventure of mistaken identity, political intrigue, and romance.
On the eve of the coronation of King Rudolf V of Ruritania, his younger half-brother Michael, Duke of Strelsau, has him drugged. The unconscious king is abducted and imprisoned in a castle in the ... (Wikipedia)
Empire of the Sun
by J.G. Ballard
A young British boy's life is turned upside down during WWII as he is separated from his parents and forced to survive in a Japanese internment camp.
The novel recounts the story of a young British boy, Jamie (“Jim”) Graham (named after Ballard's two first names, "James Graham"), who lives with his parents in Shanghai . After the Pearl Harbor ... (Wikipedia)
Murder at the Vicarage
by Agatha Christie
A seemingly peaceful English village is shaken when its vicar is murdered.
The novel is narrated by Rev. Leonard Clement, the vicar of St. Mary Mead, who lives with his much younger wife Griselda and their nephew Dennis. Colonel Lucius Protheroe, Clement's churchwarden , is ... (Wikipedia)
Dissolution
by C.J. Sansom
A lawyer in Tudor England investigates a suspicious death, uncovering a vast conspiracy.
Henry VIII has ordered the dissolution of the monasteries and England is full of informers. At the monastery of Scarnsea, events have spiralled out of control with the murder of Commissioner Robin ... (Goodreads)
The Forever War
by Joe Haldeman
A soldier's story of the horror of war and its consequences in the far future.
The monumental Hugo and Nebula award winning SF classic— Featuring a new introduction by John Scalzi,The Earth's leaders have drawn a line in the interstellar sand—despite the fact that the fierce ... (Barnes & Noble)
Busman's Honeymoon
by Dorothy L. Sayers
A newly married couple must put their honeymoon on pause to solve a murder mystery.
After an engagement of some months following the events at the end of, Gaudy Night, , Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane marry. They plan to spend their honeymoon at Talboys, an old farmhouse in ... (Wikipedia)
