Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household

Earlier this month, I wrote a blog post on a book I had just finished reading - The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley. I wrote at the time that the book had shown potential, but unfortunately I didn't think the writer was quite up to the challenge.Reading other reviews of the book, I see that my opinion of the book is in the minority.

One thing did catch my notice. One of the men who had been brought into the future and been given a book to read, which, it was mentioned, he read several times - Rogue Male. I had never heard of such a book prior to this and I wasn't completely certain it was a real book. I did a search of the Internet and learned it was indeed real.

Rogue Male was written by British writer Geoffrey Household and published in 1939. In the book, an unnamed British big game hunter travels to an unnamed European country to assassinate an unnamed dictator. The would be assassin is captured by the dictator's secret police and beaten within an inch of his life. The secret police decide that, rather than provoke a war with Britain, they would throw the body over a cliff in order to have it appear that the sportsman died in an accident. Miraculously, he survives and manages to return to England.

The sportsman learns that agents of the foreign government have tracked him to England. He cannot involve the British government, which can't condone the assassination of a foreign leader.

He kills one of the foreign agents in self defense and soon discovers that not only is he being hunted by the foreign agents, he's being hunted by the police as well.

Of course, I don't provide spoilers, but this book is a top notch thriller. I highly recommend Rogue Male.