While the book owes a debt to the more widely known The Thirty-Nine Steps and Riddle Of The Sands, for me Rogue Male is easily their equal. But, with his enemies still on his trail, he realises he’s no safer on British soil than he was on the continent – and so he attempts to disappear from the face of the Earth, and into the earth. Despite being tortured and left for dead, he manages to stage a miraculous escape back to England. Not sure 007’s ever had to do that.īriefly put, it’s the tale of an unnamed British adventurer who comes within a hair’s breadth of assassinating an anonymous European dictator ( Household later admitted it was meant to be Hitler), before he’s apprehended by the authorities. This year marks the 80th anniversary of Geoffrey Household’s classic 1939 novel Rogue Male, a tense and taut thriller complete with failed assassinations, desperate escapes, a relentless pursuit, psychological trauma and a hero who spends much of the book’s second half literally hiding like a hunted animal in a hole in the ground.
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