Ten top fictional hunts

Dan Smith is the author of adult thrillers and adventure/survival stories for younger readers. His YA novel Big Game is about a 13-year-old boy who finds himself, along with the president of the United States, in a race against a deadly enemy. In the movie adaptation of Big Game, Samuel L. Jackson is the president.

At the Guardian, Smith tagged ten of "the most thrilling books that put you in the shoes of the hunter...or the hunted," including:

Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household

This is, perhaps, the ultimate hunt, and the ultimate boy’s own adventure. The unnamed main character considers himself to be an uber-talented hunter, and sets out to fix a European dictator in his sights. He tells himself that he does not intend to pull the trigger; it’s only about the hunt. When he is captured, tortured, and finally escapes, the protagonist is forced to use his top-notch fieldcraft skills to evade recapture, return to England and survive on the run. And then he must ask himself the question once more – did he really intend to pull the trigger?

Read about another book on the list.

Rogue Male is among Philip Webb's top ten pulse-racing adventure books, Teju Cole's top ten novels of solitude, and John Mullan's top ten chases in literature.

--Marshal Zeringue