The Power-House

Our hero, Edward Leithen, seems indistinguishable from Dick Hannay - but who cares? Here we enjoy the next step on the way from Bulldog Drummond to James Bond, via Sherlock Holmes and Dornford Yates. The heart sank momentarily - but only momentarily - when the heart of the adventure was revealed to concern an international criminal organisation (forces beyond our control etc), but then one tunes in to Hunted only to be confronted with 'Hourglass', and after all, were not Smersch and SPECTRE cut from the same cloth? The action moves swiftly, the writing is a delight, the values refreshing while at the same time inspiring nostalgia. The villain comes off the page much more memorably than Moriarty, and the conclusion shows how these things show more really should be done, and really would be done in a better world. I loved it. show less

Edward Leithen learns from Tommy Deloraine that a mutual friend, Charles Pitt-Heron, has suddenly left England, without letting anyone know why or his destination. Deloraine confides that for some time Pitt-Heron had been visited by a strange crowd of people, many of them foreign; that he had become increasingly secretive; and that recently he had looked harassed, and even frightened. Having learnt that Pitt-Heron had obtained a special Embassy passport, and always on the lookout for an adventure, Deloraine declares his intention of tracking his friend down, to help him if possible.

But it is Leithen who finds adventure. A series of coincidences informs him about some of the people with whom Pitt-Heron had become involved, including show more wealthy art collector, Andrew Lumley. Visiting Lumley's house in his absence, supposedly to examine a recent purchase of Wedgwood, Leithen finds a discarded telegram which reveals that Pitt-Heron is in deadly danger, and uses his connections in the diplomatic service to put both Deloraine and the police on his trail and on that of his pursuers. Soon afterwards, Leithen has an encounter with Lumley himself: an elderly man, but one with a disturbingly compelling manner, who speaks - in purely theoretical terms - of the terrible vulnerability of civilisation, and the possibilities of international anarchy...

The Power-House is the first of five novels featuring Edward Leithen, lawyer and Member of Parliament; a character who became increasingly John Buchan's alter-ego. The five novels, very different from one another, were published over some twenty-five years, and reflect the various phases of Buchan's own remarkable political career.

Serialised in 1913, and published in 1916, The Power-House is an entertaining if improbable tale of the accidental uncovering of a dangerous international conspiracy. Leithen himself is an unlikely sort of hero, almost deliberately dull and set in his ways, although only in his mid-thirties; yet rising to the occasion when a series of connecting details revealed to him through his legal and political duties begin to suggest the existence of a deadly worldwide organisation committed to the overthrow of the rule of law. Told well enough to keep the reader engaged, the story nevertheless suffers from, on one hand, an overabundance of coincidences, and on the other, Leithen's obstinate determination to take care of everything himself, with only the erratic help of hot-tempered, two-fisted Labour MP, Chapman, rather than go to the police, even when it becomes frighteningly clear that his life is in imminent danger.

Nevertheless, there is something oddly moving about The Power-House. Penned in 1913, with war clouds gathering on the horizon, the tale clings to an almost desperate hope that what Edward Leithen calls "the goodwill of civilisation" might yet prevail in the world; the story is that of the forces of law defeating those of barbarism and anarchy. But as we now know, by the time Buchan's determinedly optimistic novella was published, its dream lay shattered in the trenches of Europe.

"You have put your finger on the one thing that matters. Civilisation is a conspiracy. What value would your police be if every criminal could find a sanctuary across the Channel, or your law courts, if no other tribunal recognised their decisions? Modern life is the silent compact of comfortable folk to keep up pretences. And it will succeed till the day comes when there is another compact to strip them bare." show less

At a little over 100 pages, it really shouldn't have taken me five days to get through this. For me this was an adventure story that didn't really seem to get going until a chase to a London embassy that occurs towards the end. I've enjoyed The 39 Steps on page, on screen and on the stage, but The Power House was, by comparison, a disappointment.

This is a short mystery / adventure novel , takes place in London in the early 1900's. It wasn't that moving of a book , seemed to drag on to much.

2023 reread: 3½*
I am changing from 4 to 3 stars (rounding down instead of up). I enjoyed it but it really wasn't as good as some of Buchan's other books.

2018 review:
Perhaps only 3½* for this fairly short adventure novel about a man who discovers a secret anarchist society in pre-WW1 London.

Perhaps only 3½* for this fairly short adventure novel about a man who discovers a secret anarchist society in pre-WW1 London.

A short novel that is gripping and exciting; set in England before 1939.