Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household

Geoffrey Household

Geoffrey Edward West Household was a prolific British novelist who specialized in thrillers. He is best known for his novel Rogue Male .-Personal life:...

 is a classic thriller novel of the 1930s.

Storyline

The protagonist, an unnamed British sportsman, sets out to see whether he can stalk and prepare to shoot a European dictator. Supposedly interested only in the hunt for its own sake, he convinces himself that he does not intend to pull the trigger.

He is caught in his stalk by the dictator's SS guards and tortured, but, on the verge of being put to death, he manages to escape. After making his way covertly back to England, he realizes that he is still being hunted and eventually is forced, literally, to go underground. During the time he spends holed up in his "hide", he ponders on his predicament and confesses to himself that he would have "pulled the trigger", as punishment for the earlier execution of the love of his life by the fascist regime. He has to use all his wit and guile to turn the tables on his pursuers and escape from their clutches.

Adaptations

• Man Hunt
  Man Hunt (1941 film)
  Man Hunt is a 1941 American thriller film directed by Fritz Lang and starring Walter Pidgeon and Joan Bennett. It is based on the 1939 novel Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household and is set just prior to the Second World War. A Jewish liberal, Lang had fled Germany into exile in the mid 1930s - this was...
  
  , starring Walter Pidgeon
  Walter Pidgeon
  Walter Davis Pidgeon was a Canadian actor, who starred in many motion pictures, including Mrs...
  
   and George Sanders
  George Sanders
  George Sanders was a British actor.George Sanders may also refer to:*George Sanders , Victoria Cross recipient in World War I...
  
  , was a 1941 Hollywood film based on Rogue Male.
• In 1951, the story was adapted for American radio as a half-hour episode of the CBS
  CBS
  CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
  
   anthology series Suspense
  Suspense (radio program)
  -Production background:One of the premier drama programs of the Golden Age of Radio, was subtitled "radio's outstanding theater of thrills" and focused on suspense thriller-type scripts, usually featuring leading Hollywood actors of the era...
  
  . Herbert Marshall
  Herbert Marshall
  Herbert Marshall , born Herbert Brough Falcon Marshall, was an English actor.His parents were Percy F. Marshall and Ethel May Turner. He graduated from St. Mary's College in Old Harlow, Essex and worked for a time as an accounting clerk...
  
   and Ben Wright
  Ben Wright (actor)
  Ben Wright was an English actor in radio, film and television. He trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.-Radio:...
  
   starred.
• Rogue Male was a 1976 BBC
  BBC
  The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
  
   TV film, starring Peter O'Toole
  Peter O'Toole
  Peter Seamus Lorcan O'Toole is an Irish actor of stage and screen. O'Toole achieved stardom in 1962 playing T. E. Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia, and then went on to become a highly-honoured film and stage actor. He has been nominated for eight Academy Awards, and holds the record for most...
  
  , John Standing
  John Standing
  Sir John Ronald Leon Standing, 4th Baronet is an English actor.-Early life:Standing was born John Ronald Leon in London, the son of Kay Hammond , an actress, and Sir Ronald George Leon, a stockbroker...
  
   and Alistair Sim.
• The book was adapted for radio by the BBC, in 1989, as a 90-minute drama starring Simon Cadell
  Simon Cadell
  Simon John Cadell was an English actor.Born in London, he was the grandson of the Scottish character actor Jean Cadell, the brother of the actress Selina Cadell, and the cousin of the actor Guy Siner. He was educated at Bedales School at Petersfield where his close friends included Gyles...
  
   and David Googe.
• In 2004, an unabridged reading of Rogue Male, performed by Michael Jayston
  Michael Jayston
  Michael Jayston is a Nottingham-born English actor.- Early life :He attended the Becket Grammar School in West Bridgford, then worked briefly as a trainee accountant at the offices of the National Coal Board before obtaining a scholarship to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama to train as an...
  
  , in fifteen half-hour episodes, was broadcast on BBC Radio 7.
• In 2009, a five-part abridged reading of the sequel Rogue Justice (again read by Michael Jayston) was broadcast on BBC Radio 7.

Influences

The book influenced David Morrell

David Morrell

David Morrell is a Canadian-American novelist, best known for his debut 1972 novel First Blood, which would later become the successful Rambo film franchise starring Sylvester Stallone. He has written 28 novels, and his work has been translated into 26 languages...

's first novel, the 1972 'hunted man' action thriller First Blood, which spawned the Rambo film series. Morrell has acknowledged the debt in several interviews, including: "When I started First Blood, back in 1968, I was deeply influenced by Geoffrey Household's Rogue Male"

See also

• Operation Foxley
  Operation Foxley
  Operation Foxley was a 1944 plan to assassinate Adolf Hitler, made by the British Special Operations Executive . Although detailed preparations were made, no attempt was made to carry out the plan...
  
  
• Assassinations in fiction