Brace Yourself

by Russell James

Betrayal and murder at a country house shooting party. When this story appeared in a characteristically yellow and black Victor Gollancz anthology, 'Crime Yellow', the Times review picked it out as ‘a splendid country house shocker from Russell James’.John Leighton, owner of a fine estate in the Cotswolds, lives well – when we meet him he is ‘warmly encased in leather-lined Le Chameau boots, neat Habicht binoculars slung loose around his neck, and he carries a boxlock Holland and Holland Cavalier shotgun in one hand.’ Weekend shooting parties are nothing new to him – but for Leighton this will be the first (and last) to be attended by some friends, some business contacts, his wife’s lover, and an undercover London hit-man.

31 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 16, 2012

About the author

A British author of some 2 dozen books, half of which are crime novels, Russell is an ex-chairman of the Crime Writers Association. He has written several non-fiction works and half a dozen historical novels. He is currently working on the third book in his Croome Victorian saga, the first of which is AFTER SHE DROWNED, telling of forbidden love in the Victorian Church, and the second THE CAPTAIN'S WARD, telling of a young girl's coming of age in Victorian Britain.