Greenmantle is the second of five novels by John Buchan featuring the character of Richard Hannay, first published in 1916, It is one of two Hannay novels set during the First World War, the other being Mr Standfast (1919); Hannay's first and best-known adventure, The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915), is set in the period immediately preceding the war.
Hannay is called in to investigate rumours of an uprising in the Muslim world, and undertakes a perilous journey through enemy territory to meet his friend Sandy in Constantinople. Once there, he and his friends must thwart the Germans' plans to use religion to help them win the war, climaxing at the battle of Erzurum.
John Buchan, (1875 1940) was a Scottish novelist, historian, biographer and editor. Outside the field of literature he was, at various times, a barrister, a publisher, a lieutenant colonel in the Intelligence Corps, the Director of Informationreporting directly to prime minister David Lloyd Georgeduring the First World War and a Unionist MP who served as Governor General of Canada, the 15th since Canadian Confederation.