Rogue Male

Rogue Maleis a classic thriller. Passing through a foreign country, an Englishman who is a professional hunter is led to wonder whether he might be able to infiltrate the local dictator's compound, target the dictator, even perhaps take him down. His efforts are successfulhe has his target in his sites and is wondering if he should follow through on what had begun as a kind of larkwhen he is seized by the dictator's security guard. His captors imprison and torture him, and an ingenious and diplomatic death is planned, except that in the end they bungle the job. Though wounded,Rogue Male's nameless hero escapes. A series of harrowing close encounters accompany his flight through enemy territory. He succeeds in reaching his native England, only to realize that he is no longer safe there: his pursuers will not be diverted from their revenge by national borders and the British government cannot protect him without seeming to endorse his actions. He has no chance but to go under the radar, to find a spot for himself outside the bounds of society, to retreat as a fox does to its earth. But then for a hunter there is deep interest in being among the hunted. Who should know better how to escape pursuit? Our hero soon discovers that he is dealing with men who are no less out of the ordinary than he is. Household's masterly command of suspense is everywhere evident in the pages ofRogue Male. At the same time, the bookdescribed by the author as a "bastard offspring of Stevenson and Conrad"is an astonishing exploration of the lure of violence, the psychology of survivalism, and the call of the wild.

Geoffrey Household (1900—1988) was born in Bristol and educated at Magdalen College, Oxford. He worked all over the world, including Eastern Europe, the US, the Middle East and South America as, among other things, a banker, a salesman, and an encyclopedia writer. He served in British intelligence in World War II. His other works include A Rough Shoot, Watcher in the Shadows, Rogue Justice and an autobiography, Against the Wind.