The Riddle of the Sands

The Riddle of the Sands is a BBC adaptation of the novel of the same name by Irish-English author Erskine Childers. The story begins when Carruthers, a young official in the Foreign Office who is having a boring summer, accepts an invitation from his friend, Davis, to go sailing.

He meets Davis in Flensburg, Germany, just south of Denmark on the Baltic Sea, to find that Davis has, not the impressive yacht he dreamt of, but a small poorly-appointed sailboat and a raft of ulterior motives. Davis wants Carruthers to help investigate mysterious doings in the Frisian Islands in the North Sea off the northwest coast of Germany. Carruthers agrees, and the two set sail into mystery, intrigue, and danger.

The Riddle of the Sands is considered by many the first modern espionage novel, bridging the gap between the Victorian adventure stories of H. Rider Haggard and the early 20th Century novels of John Buchan, most famous for The Thirty-Nine Steps, and, in more recent times, those of Ian Fleming and John le Carre.