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Revision as of 15:40, 29 August 2020
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{{infoboxinfobox1
|title=The Island of Sheep (John Hannay)
|sort= Island of Sheep (John Hannay)
|reviewer=John Lloyd
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=A slightly languid and plummy thriller, but the sense of place and nature is superlative at times.
|rating=3.5
|buy=Yes
|date=July 2010
|isbn=978-1846971563
|amazonukcover=<amazonuk>184697156X</amazonuk>|amazonusaznuk=184697156X|aznus=<amazonus>184697156X</amazonus>
}}
You might not expect Hannay, on the evidence of whichever ''The 39 Steps'' adaptation you know the best, to be featuring in such a rural book. He first meets his charge while relaxing in the countryside. Major scenes concern their hiding out in a very finely evoked Scottish isolation. But as the introduction here suggests, this has never been thought of as strictly a thriller.
Buchan, from what I can gather, had a very fine writing career. In his fiction he dipped in and out of the lives of several heroes, aging ageing them alongside his real life, and fitting them into a story not for commercial reasons but because their bearing most suited whichever adventure he had dreamt up, and when Buchan's own experience and travels allowed for a knowledgeable and well-realised escapade. Hence the veracity of the scenery, pastoral aspects and travelling that fill so many of these pages. You could be sure the lengthy car chase scene here (a highlight) would have been travelled, and never researched solely through Ordnance Survey maps.
And so Buchan, winding down many of his own prestigious careers, and publishing what was to be his last novel (save for the posthumous lost classic [[Sick Heart River by John Buchan|Sick Heart River]]), makes Hannay a slightly elderly, paternal figure. He looks after the man under threat from the bitterness against him just as the father to whom the pledge was first made might have done, and allows his son to play a major part in proceedings, especially when the victim's school-age daughter enters the fray.
I must thank the kind Polygon people for my review copy.
You might enjoy the contrast between the aging ageing hero here and the dying hero in [[Bank Of The Black Sheep (Robin Llywelyn Trilogy) by Robert Lewis]], such is the broad church of crime fiction.
{{amazontext|amazon=184697156X}}
