When Sir Peregrine Piers decided to open his stately home to the public, Regency Rakes Ltd was formed to promote it. Spectacular stunts were planned, a regency rout and hunting supper, and a midnight steeplechase. Nathaniel Goss, magazine publisher and amateur detective, took a lively interest in regency Rakes, the more so as he had recently joined a shooting syndicate whose terrain bordered on Sir Peregrine's land. Th syndicate is composed of some oddly assorted characters, among them the odious Dyson and the gruff Blaze, and headed by the immaculate Archie Crumbe-Howard. Dyson meets a sticky end in a particular nasty shooting accident- or was it by design? Domestic strife become rife, the keeper's unmarried daughter is alleged to be pregnant, and suspicion piles upon suspicion.
The only complaint regarding this solid mystery is that the author was a mad keen shooter so the reader is subjected to the miniature of several days shooting interspersed with a bit of mystery solving. Some of the shooting stuff is interesting but in reality 30 pages could have been culled without any loss to the plot.
A diverse bunch of people are suspect and the unveiling of the villain, while not a surprise shows good reasoning as to why. Solid, originally published in 1961.
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