The Shooting Party: A Novel

In the autumn of 1913, Sir Randolph Nettleby assembles a brilliant array of guests at his Oxfordshire estate for the biggest pheasant hunt of the season. An army of gamekeepers, beaters, and servants has rehearsed the intricate age-old ritual, and everything about this splendid weekend promises a perfect consummation of the pleasures afforded the privileged in Edwardian England.

And yet it is not: the moral and social code of this group is not so secure as it appears. Competition beyond the bounds of sportsmanship, revulsion at the slaughter of the animals, anger at the inequities of class--these forces are about to rise up and engulf the assured social peace, a peace that can last only a brief while longer. In imagining Sir Randolph's shooting party, wrote The Spectator, "Colegate has found a perfect metaphor for the passing of a way of life."

"The Shooting Party is a lovely piece of writing, in which subtlety, irony, and close observation abound." --Larry McMurtry