The Shooting Party by Isabel Colegate is a quiet, elegant meditation on class frustration and the transience of human concern.
It is the autumn of 1913 and Sir Randolph Nettleby has assembled a brilliant array of guests at his Oxfordshire estate for the biggest shoot of the season.
Everything about this weekend would seem a perfect consummation of the pleasures afforded the privileged in Edwardian England, yet the moral and social code of this group is not as secure as it appears. Competition beyond the bounds of sportsmanship, revulsion at the slaughter of the animals and anger at the inequalities of class are about to rise up and engulf social peace.
‘Threads of romance, social comment, country lore and intrigue both above and below stairs are cunningly worked together to create a brilliant tapestry’ Sunday Telegraph
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