I returned recently to what’s become sort of an annual favorite, one of Geoffrey Household‘s thrilling cat-and-mouse novels. This time I chose Watcher in the Shadows, which (truth be told) wasn’t my favorite but certainly was entertaining. I was surprised to find on Goodreads.com that this has been voted his second-best novel after his classic, Rogue Male. While I enjoyed it, I certainly wouldn’t vote it so high.
This book starts like so many others, an average man with a unique skill-set who suddenly finds himself the (accidental?) victim of some vicious attack, and now must flee into hiding until he regain his wits. Here, “on the morning of May 20, 1955,” a letter bomb shocks our zoologist protagonist, Charles Dennim, into a sudden venture after squirrels in the English countryside, for he fears that perhaps the bomb was meant for him. What secret might a quiet bachelor zoologist have, but that he served as a spy in Buchenwald, that evil WWII prison camp, and he fears an inmate or family member might have suddenly realized his identity and come for revenge (which is basically what happened).
The beginning of this story was fairly convoluted and hard to follow, and there were many points throughout the story where I honestly wasn’t sure if Household’s characters were speaking English. I mean, they were definitely speaking “British”, but it wasn’t English, and my modern American mind couldn’t place the scene or grasp some of the conversation. Lots of war memories from Sir Thomas who “never stopped giving us extracts of his unwritten memoirs through six courses” and a bit more than I could handle of equestrian hobbies. While the deep English-country feel are a hallmark of Household’s books and I’ve found them educational before, this one just set the bar way too low.
Of course, Household redeems himself from the lulling narratives in the beginning and middle of the book with the final chapters of car chases and midnight duels. The scenes in the field and barn which cover the final mano y mano fight are so memorable that they ought never be put to film. The theater of the mind lies thick with the suspense of it all, and it’s definitely an ending that a reader can’t put down till its over.
I can’t believe that Geoffrey Household hasn’t remained a “household” name in thriller-reading circles, for his thrillers are prime examples of the art. The man’s legacy needs a revival in these days of crappy, co-authored “suspense” novels that are really only selling the author’s name with no deep concern for content. I plan to go through Household’s full bibliography someday, because really, he’s worth it.
©2019 E.T.
Read More from Geoffrey Household:
- The Third Hour (1937)
- Rogue Male (1939)
- A Rough Shoot (1951)
- Fellow Passenger (1955)
- The Brides of Solomon and Other Stories (1958)
- Watcher in the Shadows (1960)
- Olura (1965)
- Hostage: London (1977)
- The Last Two Hours of Georges Rivac (1978)