Rogue Male

Geoffrey Household, 1939, New York Review Books, with a 2007 introduction by Victoria Nelson.

An unnamed British hunter lines up his rifle on an unnamed dictator (Hitler) and is captured, tortured, and left for dead. The novel describes his escape, evading the dictator's extensive spy network with woodcraft and cunning. In the same genre as John Buchan's Thirty Nine Steps and four other novels about Richard Hanney. Household's book is less jingoistic and more psychological - a better story IMHO.

Rogue Justice

Geoffrey Household, 1982, Penguin Paperback, purchased at Powells.

On page 185, we learn that our protagonist is Raymond Ingleram, who I will call RI. British father Ralph, Austrian mother.

April 1942, RI is in Rostock prison in Nazi Germany awaiting interrogation by Hasse. He spent the prior three years pretending to be fascist Nicaraguan Don Ernesto, hoping to get close to Hitler in order to assassinate him. He was identified as an impostor by von Lauen's widow, escapes through Copenhagen and Sweden, but is refused by the British embassy and sent back to Copenhagen and capture.

The novel describes his escape. He frees and collaborates with 4 prisoners being transported to Auschwitz. He travels through Cracow Poland, Dukla Pass Slovakia, Sighet and Bucharest Romania, Istanbul Turkey, and Greece. With a German passport of Ludwig Weber, he captures a plane flying him, his guards, and General Kurtbek to Salonica Greece, diverts to the plain of Aliakmon on the way to Thessalonika. (p138) fights the German garrison in Kozani Greece, Yannina in western Greece, then joins the Italians and a oil tanker to Benghazi. (p181) tanker torpedoed by British destroyer. (p198) "killed 18 enemies". (p200) Ship from Suez, escapes at Mombasa Kenya. (p204) Ruzizi River, Belgian nunnery in Burundi as Bill Smith. (p206) end, killed with attacking lion.

Against The Wind

Geoffrey Household, 1959, Little Brown and Company. PSU Library PR6015.07884 Z54 1959

Autobiography of Household (1900-1988), 2/3 of the way though his life, 1/3 of the way though his writing career, which took off with Rogue Male and restarted after the 1939-1944 war. Three sections, Traveller (sales), Soldier (army intelligence), Craftsman (writing). The first section is interesting, but has way too many diversions into the droll phrase rather than the descriptive one - distracting. I'm amused that before the war, Household helped sell more printing ink than was ever used to print his books after; Household may have been a competent salesman, but not a curious one. He writes of many quick befriendings of foreigners. Writing being a lonely profession (and he illustrates that), this seems contradictory - perhaps he chose to disappear behind the safety of a typewriter. Hard to say - I would like to read a biography by an observer rather than the subject, and compare notes.

Doom's Caravan

Geoffrey Household, 1971, Little Brown and Company. PSU Library PR6015.07885 D6 1971

Novel about counterintelligence in Palestine and Lebanon in 1942, drawn from authors time doing just that.