Rogue Male

Name: Rogue Male
Author: Geoffrey Household

Geoffrey Household

— 1939 —

“

A British nobleman attempts to assassinate an unnamed European dictator (clearly Hitler) for sport, then must flee when the attempt fails.

The record

Time
An eveningA season
192 pages, about 4 hours: two-thirds the length of a typical book on the shelf.
Getting in
Walk right inSteep climb
The unnamed narrator begins by explaining why he stalked a European dictator with a rifle, a hunt that ended in his capture.
What it gives
Plot and actionIdeas to live by
In 11 reviews from critics and book blogs, 10 credit the plot and 6 credit the ideas or a change in how they live.
One of a kind
Others do thisNothing else does
Four reviews set Rogue Male beside Buchan’s The Thirty-Nine Steps, on the shelf at 116 pages, and one finds it more satisfying.

on the diary
“One gets a sense of breathless sharing of the victim’s panic”
Unsigned review · Kirkus Reviews, 1939
on the length
“a short book of fewer than 200 pages that reads well”
a book blog
on the fieldcraft
“verisimilitude that Household brings to the activities of his hero”
a book blog
on the hunted man
“Surely one of the best ever treatments of a human being hunted”
a Substack review

on the period detail
“too dated and ludicrous for my taste”
three stars · a book blog
on the terrain description
“the details are too messy or undefined”
three stars · a book blog
on the narrator
“I don’t warm to this unnamed narrator at all”
a book blog
on the protagonist
“made it difficult for me to care what happened to him on an emotional level”
a book blog