Forty years ago, probably few people would have taken bets on the survival of anything Buchan wrote, with the possible exception of The Thirty-nine Steps and perhaps one or two of his historical romances.sell. The first volume is a thriller story with an exotic (mainly Greek) setting, the second is the last of the Richard Hannay stories, and probably the weakest of them, too. How Buchan, with his many interests and demanding career, managed to write forty-odd books is a mystery (he ended up as Lord Tweedsmuir and Governor-General of Canada).