1930-something: a professional hunter is passing through an unnamed Central European country that is in the thrall of a vicious dictator. The hunter wonders whether he can penetrate undetected into the dictator’s private compound. He does. He has the potential target in his sites and is wondering whether to pull the trigger when security catches up with him. Imprisoned, tortured, doomed to a painful death, the hunter makes an extraordinary and harrowing escape, fleeing through enemy territory to the safety of his native England. But that safety is delusive: his pursuers will not be diverted from their revenge by national borders; the British government cannot protect him without seeming to endorse his deed. The hunter must flee society, and he goes literaly underground, like a fox to its earth. The hunter has become the hunted.

Geoffrey Household’s Rogue Male is a classic thriller and a triumph of suspense. Described by Household as a “bastard offspring of Stevenson and Conrad,” the book is no less remarkable as an exploration of the lure of violence, the psychology of survivalism, and the call of the wild.

作者傑弗裏•豪斯霍爾德 (1900—1988)， 英國著名作傢，齣生於英國布裏斯托爾，1922年在牛津大學馬格達倫學院取得英國文學學士學位。二戰期間曾就職於英國情報部門，並在中歐、中東、美國及南美等地從事過各式各樣的工作，一生閱曆豐富。傑弗裏•豪斯霍爾德在懸疑驚悚小說領域極富盛名，《暴戾人》是他最廣為人知的一部扛鼎之作。他其餘的作品還包括《陰影中的守望者》《無恥的正義》 《高地》《欲望之箭》等。

譯者王濤，中國當代優秀翻譯傢，他翻譯並編撰瞭許多有關外國文化的著作，涉及英美文學、曆史、社會學等多個方麵。其代錶譯作有《第二次世界大戰》《紅星照耀中國》等。