Rogue Male (novel)

The protagonist, an unnamed British sportsman and crack shot, sets out in the spring of 1938 to see if he can get an unnamed European dictator in the sights of his rifle. Supposedly interested only in the thrill of hunting a powerful man, he convinces himself that he does not intend to pull the trigger. Caught while taking aim by officers of the dictator's secret police, he is tortured, thrown over a cliff and left for dead.

The man survives and, with civilian help, manages to make his way to a port where he stows away on a British ship bound for London. Once there, he discovers that agents of the dictator have also arrived in London with orders to kill him. He is forced to kill one by pushing him onto the live rail on the London Underground, after which the police launch a manhunt for him.

Unable to go to the British authorities, who cannot condone assassination of a head of state, the protagonist decides to hide out in Dorset. Reports that he has been sighted reach a man named Quive-Smith, the leader of his pursuers. Seizing the opportunity, Quive-Smith finds his quarry's underground hiding place and blocks the exit, leaving only a single hole for breathing. With the protagonist thus at his mercy, Quive-Smith intends to coerce a written confession, implicating the British government.

The protagonist reflects on his predicament and confesses to himself that he would in fact have pulled the trigger, as revenge for the execution of his fiancée by the dictator's totalitarian régime. Constructing a makeshift slingshot, he tricks Quive-Smith into looking down the breathing hole and shoots him dead. Digging his way out, he takes Quive-Smith's identification papers, money and car. He drives to Liverpool and boards a ship for Tangier. From there, he intends to find the dictator and finish what he started.

Interviewed by the Radio Times for the first screening of the BBC film version of the novel, Household acknowledged that he always intended the protagonist's target to be Adolf Hitler: "Although the idea for Rogue Male germinated from my intense dislike of Hitler, I did not actually name him in the book as things were a bit tricky at the time and I thought I would leave it open so that the target could be either Hitler or Stalin. You could take your pick".^[2]

Household published a sequel, Rogue Justice, in 1982. In the sequel, the protagonist, now named as Raymond Ingelram, goes undercover in Nazi Germany, looking for a second chance to hunt the European dictator. Allied with escaping Jews and resistance groups, he fights his way across occupied Europe, with the Gestapo on his heels.

• Man Hunt, directed by Fritz Lang and starring Walter Pidgeon and George Sanders, was a 1941 Hollywood film based on Rogue Male, in which the unspecified dictator of the novel is explicitly identified as Hitler. For this version, Pidgeon's character is named Captain Alan Thorndike.
• In 2016, Fox Searchlight Pictures was setting up a new adaptation penned by Michael Lesslie (Macbeth, Assassin's Creed) and starring Benedict Cumberbatch. SunnyMarch, Cumberbatch's production company, was also producing.^[3] In November 2025, Cumberbatch said that he hoped to start filming the following year.^[4]

• Rogue Male was a 1976 BBC TV film, starring Peter O'Toole, John Standing and Alastair Sim. For this version, O'Toole's character was named Sir Robert Hunter.

• In 1951, the story was adapted for American radio as a half-hour episode of the CBS anthology series Suspense. Herbert Marshall and Ben Wright starred.
• The book was adapted for radio by the BBC, on 26 December 1989, as a 90-minute drama starring Simon Cadell and David Googe. It was repeated on Radio 4 Extra on 28th February 2026.
• In 2004, an unabridged reading of Rogue Male, performed by Michael Jayston, in fifteen half-hour episodes, was broadcast on BBC Radio 7. It was broadcast again on Radio 4 Extra in August/September 2012, again in March/April 2014, again in November 2017 and most recently in March 2021. A five-part abridged reading of the sequel, Rogue Justice, was also performed by Michael Jayston. It was broadcast on BBC Radio 7 in 2009 and subsequently repeated there and on BBC Radio 4 Extra.