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A Rough Shoot #1
Rough Shoot
Paperback.
144 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1951
15 people are currently reading
88 people want to read
About the author
Geoffrey Household
96 books88 followersBritish author of mostly thrillers, though among 37 books he also published children's fiction. Household's flight-and-chase novels, which show the influence of John Buchan, were often narrated in the first person by a gentleman-adventurer. Among his best-know works is' Rogue Male' (1939), a suggestive story of a hunter who becomes the hunted, in 1941 filmed by Fritz Lang as 'Man Hunt'. Household's fast-paced story foreshadowed such international bestsellers as Richard Condon's thriller 'The Manchurian Candidate' (1959), Frederick Forsyth's 'The Day of the Jackal' (1971), and Ken Follett's 'Eye of the Needle' (1978) .
In 1922 Household received his B.A. in English from Magdalen College, Oxford, and between 1922 and 1935 worked in commerce abroad, moving to the US in 1929. During World War II, Household served in the Intelligence Corps in Romania and the Middle East. After the War he lived the life of a country gentleman and wrote. In his later years, he lived in Charlton, near Banbury, Oxfordshire, and died in Wardington.
Household also published an autobiography, 'Against the Wind' (1958), and several collections of short stories, which he himself considered his best work.
In 1922 Household received his B.A. in English from Magdalen College, Oxford, and between 1922 and 1935 worked in commerce abroad, moving to the US in 1929. During World War II, Household served in the Intelligence Corps in Romania and the Middle East. After the War he lived the life of a country gentleman and wrote. In his later years, he lived in Charlton, near Banbury, Oxfordshire, and died in Wardington.
Household also published an autobiography, 'Against the Wind' (1958), and several collections of short stories, which he himself considered his best work.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
October 27, 2010
I love the ‘innocent bystander’ type spy story. They are the classic wrong place at the wrong time scenario. It is the innocent person who stumbles in on an incident or who gets caught up in the web of intrigue by accident. The classic example would have to be, The 39 Steps where Richard Hannay by shear happenstance gets caught up with foreign spies. The thing is, however, many of these stories are extremely contrived at the beginning to drag the ‘innocent bystander’ into the shenanigans.
A Rough Shoot has a very novel approach to this problem, but before I explain how our hero, Roger Taine, is drawn into the story, I’ll outline a little of the background. Firstly, I’ll explain what a ‘shoot’ is. In this instance, it is a property, called Blossom’s Farm in Dorset. Roger Taine has bought the shooting rights to the property. That is he is allowed to hunt all the game on the property. Anyone else, who takes a pot shot at some pheasant or rabbits on the property is a poacher.
As the story begins, Taine is on his shoot, when he spies two men on his property. Naturally he thinks they are poachers and decides to teach them – at least one of them – a lesson. He fires a load of buckshot into the backside of one of the poachers. Upon hearing the shot, the second poacher scarpers. The first however, the one who was shot, falls over and impales himself on a spike he had been setting up. The spike pierces his heart, and the man dies.
Taine wanted to teach the man a tweezers and Mercurochrome lesson, but not kill him. Taine panics. He has a young family, and even though it was an accident, he doesn’t want to spend time behind bars for manslaughter. So he does what any normal man in his position would do – he buries the body on the shoot and pretends the incident never occurred.
But now Taine is on edge. He is waiting for the knock on the door from the police – but strangely the ‘knock’ never comes. Now there’s a reason that the police haven’t come for Taine – and that’s simply because no one has reported a crime or a missing person to the police. Now what type of people wouldn’t report a murder to the police? The type who don’t want the police to know what they are doing.
One person who has an idea of what’s going on is a Polish General named Sandorski. Sandorski is a strange sort of freelance secret agent. From page 31 (Taine’s summation of Sandorski):
' I don’t know how many secret organizations he served when it suited him – indeed, I doubt if he knew himself – but one was his own, formed by him and let by him.'
While performing one of his missions in Germany, interrogating a professional thug, Sandorski hears that he has been accused of killing a man in Dorset. Of course Sandorski did no such thing, but the blame has fallen on him so he sets off for England and to Dorset. There he sits around and watches and waits. One weekend, when Taine is shooting game, Sandorski approaches him with the suggestion that it was Taine who killed the missing gentleman.
Taine doesn’t admit to the crime, but asks why Sandorski would believe such a thing. It comes down to the simple fact, that Taine is the only one in the vicinity with the shooting skills to do so. But Sandorski isn’t after Taine. He’s after a secret spy ring, that have been operating in the area.
The spikes that the alleged ‘poachers’ had been setting up at the beginning, were actually the legs for a series of homing beacons, which the aircraft would use to land safely on Taine’s shoot. The willful and impulsive Sandorski enlists Taine’s aid to move the beacons, so the plane will in fact land in another location, giving them time to discover who and what is on board.
A Rough Shoot is a very short book, barely more than a novella, and it is fast paced – so most readers would knock this over in an evening. Geoffrey Household adopts the first person narrative style he used so well in Rogue Male, and so at times the story seems to be cut from a similar cloth, but in reality this story is less substantial than Rogue Male – and at times, primarily due to the actions of General Sandorski, it almost becomes light comedy. None-the-less, A Rough Shoot is a pleasant diversion for an evening and a fascinating companion piece to the harder Rogue Male.
A Rough Shoot has a very novel approach to this problem, but before I explain how our hero, Roger Taine, is drawn into the story, I’ll outline a little of the background. Firstly, I’ll explain what a ‘shoot’ is. In this instance, it is a property, called Blossom’s Farm in Dorset. Roger Taine has bought the shooting rights to the property. That is he is allowed to hunt all the game on the property. Anyone else, who takes a pot shot at some pheasant or rabbits on the property is a poacher.
As the story begins, Taine is on his shoot, when he spies two men on his property. Naturally he thinks they are poachers and decides to teach them – at least one of them – a lesson. He fires a load of buckshot into the backside of one of the poachers. Upon hearing the shot, the second poacher scarpers. The first however, the one who was shot, falls over and impales himself on a spike he had been setting up. The spike pierces his heart, and the man dies.
Taine wanted to teach the man a tweezers and Mercurochrome lesson, but not kill him. Taine panics. He has a young family, and even though it was an accident, he doesn’t want to spend time behind bars for manslaughter. So he does what any normal man in his position would do – he buries the body on the shoot and pretends the incident never occurred.
But now Taine is on edge. He is waiting for the knock on the door from the police – but strangely the ‘knock’ never comes. Now there’s a reason that the police haven’t come for Taine – and that’s simply because no one has reported a crime or a missing person to the police. Now what type of people wouldn’t report a murder to the police? The type who don’t want the police to know what they are doing.
One person who has an idea of what’s going on is a Polish General named Sandorski. Sandorski is a strange sort of freelance secret agent. From page 31 (Taine’s summation of Sandorski):
' I don’t know how many secret organizations he served when it suited him – indeed, I doubt if he knew himself – but one was his own, formed by him and let by him.'
While performing one of his missions in Germany, interrogating a professional thug, Sandorski hears that he has been accused of killing a man in Dorset. Of course Sandorski did no such thing, but the blame has fallen on him so he sets off for England and to Dorset. There he sits around and watches and waits. One weekend, when Taine is shooting game, Sandorski approaches him with the suggestion that it was Taine who killed the missing gentleman.
Taine doesn’t admit to the crime, but asks why Sandorski would believe such a thing. It comes down to the simple fact, that Taine is the only one in the vicinity with the shooting skills to do so. But Sandorski isn’t after Taine. He’s after a secret spy ring, that have been operating in the area.
The spikes that the alleged ‘poachers’ had been setting up at the beginning, were actually the legs for a series of homing beacons, which the aircraft would use to land safely on Taine’s shoot. The willful and impulsive Sandorski enlists Taine’s aid to move the beacons, so the plane will in fact land in another location, giving them time to discover who and what is on board.
A Rough Shoot is a very short book, barely more than a novella, and it is fast paced – so most readers would knock this over in an evening. Geoffrey Household adopts the first person narrative style he used so well in Rogue Male, and so at times the story seems to be cut from a similar cloth, but in reality this story is less substantial than Rogue Male – and at times, primarily due to the actions of General Sandorski, it almost becomes light comedy. None-the-less, A Rough Shoot is a pleasant diversion for an evening and a fascinating companion piece to the harder Rogue Male.
March 14, 2016
Fans of John Buchan And John Le Carre will enjoy this spy chase caper. It's 1952 and former colonel Taine is working for a building firm in Dorchester, spending his spare hours killing rabbits on a farm shoot that he has rented. While sitting silently hidden and watching his land he sees what he believes to be poachers laying traps, so takes a pot-shot to scare them off. Unfortunately for Taine he has a dead body on his hands. His consequent discovery that the men were up to no good and that a Polish General was already on their track leads them to join forces in attempting to bring the fascist ringleaders to justice before they themselves are eliminated.
Want to read
April 7, 2019Synopsis: one unlucky shot at a marauder plunges retired Colonel Taine into the trap-door world of international intrigue, terror and violence.
August 18, 2017
Thoroughly enjoyed this. It's not quite as good as Rogue Male but it's in the same ballpark quality-wise. Household seemed to specialize in memorable opening sequences and A Rough Shoot is no different in that regard. Roger Taine hires the shooting rights to a Dorset farm. While engaged in that pursuit one afternoon, he spies an ample backside sticking out from under a hedge and decides that its owner is poaching on 'his' land. Taine fires a warning blast of buckshot into said backside to teach the man a lesson. The trespasser falls to the ground and lies very still, too still. Taine inspects and finds that the man has fallen onto a sharp spike and been killed instantly. The spike is part of a radio beacon that the man was planting in order to help aeroplanes land as part of a neo-Fascist plot. Taine buries the body in a field but the dead man's colleagues are soon on his trail. After that little lot, as one can imagine, we are well away. There follows an enjoyable sequence of chases that take place in cars, on foot and, as a nice twist, by train at the very end of the book. In his attempt to foil the Fascists, Taine is helped by Polish secret policeman Sandorski, an interesting and amusing character.
As usual with Household, the story is related in an agreeably sardonic manner and there is plenty of drama and intrigue along the way. This is a fine, breathless, exhilarating read.
As usual with Household, the story is related in an agreeably sardonic manner and there is plenty of drama and intrigue along the way. This is a fine, breathless, exhilarating read.
February 1, 2017
As I dictate this review to my secretary, who is poised with shorthand pad and a propelling pencil of the most costly Swiss variety, I am once again struck by the ludicrous constraints imposed by the Goodreads scoring system. Thousands of book I have read, processing their contents with billions upon trillions of neural connections in my superbly conditioned brain, but Goodreads expects my reactions to any given book- my nuanced, subtle, multi-dimensional reactions- to be summarised as a single score of N stars. They might as well ask, what colour is the Mona Lisa? with an option to choose one of five shades.
October 5, 2014
A great, old fashioned but fast-paced spy thriller set in the British countryside. I wish there were more books like this around. It's the first Household novel I've read, but certainly won't be the last. It reminded me a little of John Buchan but was more modern and, for me, more engaging. A better comparison would be George Markstein (who worked on the TV series The Prisoner), but everybody seems to have forgotten about his fabulous books!
December 15, 2018
I did not find this an easy read. Nor did I think Colonel Taine's behaviour was OK from the outset. This is a complicated story which might work very well on cinema, but it was not an easy or exciting read. The author has not got John Buchan's skill at conveying a really exciting spy or crime adventure.
November 21, 2021
Geoffrey Household wrote a diverse assortment of thrillers set in a wide variety of locales from the Mideast to South America, but he is best remembered for his mastery of the manhunt sub-genre of suspense novels. (His Rogue Male is a genre-defining classic.)
A number of those hunter-and-prey duels were set in the English countryside, which Household obviously knew well and was very fond of. Some, it must be said, are better than others; the details of making one's way stealthily across the landscape have a way of eclipsing the other dramatic elements, and if you're not an enthusiastic hiker or hunter your interest wanes.
This one is reasonably interesting if not the best of the lot; the premise strains credulity just a tad. Ex-soldier Roger Taine has rented the hunting rights (the rough shooting of the title) on a farmer's land and is enjoying an evening's tramp over the ground when he spots a suspected poacher; he gives him a load of birdshot in the seat of the pants to teach him a lesson (no, that's not how I'd do it, either) and watches in horror as the man tumbles onto a spike and impales himself. Investigating, Taine determines that the deceased was not a poacher but a spy, setting up radio beacons to guide an airplane in for a clandestine landing with a foreign agent on board. The rest of the book just works out the consequences, as Taine and an ex-Polish general tracking a far-right cell are chased around the countryside by the police and a motley crew of domestic fascists. The premise is subordinate to the hide-and-seek fun, as usual. Not a masterpiece, but entertaining for fans of Household's peculiar specialty.
A number of those hunter-and-prey duels were set in the English countryside, which Household obviously knew well and was very fond of. Some, it must be said, are better than others; the details of making one's way stealthily across the landscape have a way of eclipsing the other dramatic elements, and if you're not an enthusiastic hiker or hunter your interest wanes.
This one is reasonably interesting if not the best of the lot; the premise strains credulity just a tad. Ex-soldier Roger Taine has rented the hunting rights (the rough shooting of the title) on a farmer's land and is enjoying an evening's tramp over the ground when he spots a suspected poacher; he gives him a load of birdshot in the seat of the pants to teach him a lesson (no, that's not how I'd do it, either) and watches in horror as the man tumbles onto a spike and impales himself. Investigating, Taine determines that the deceased was not a poacher but a spy, setting up radio beacons to guide an airplane in for a clandestine landing with a foreign agent on board. The rest of the book just works out the consequences, as Taine and an ex-Polish general tracking a far-right cell are chased around the countryside by the police and a motley crew of domestic fascists. The premise is subordinate to the hide-and-seek fun, as usual. Not a masterpiece, but entertaining for fans of Household's peculiar specialty.
Read
February 23, 2025This is the second Geoffrey Household, the other also published in the Classic Thrillers series, that I have read.
This one, interestingly, has no chapter divide with the entire 127 pages (in the edition I read) continuous.
A Rough Shoot, which is also known as Shoot First, is the first of two novels by Household to feature the character Roger Taine. The second, A Time to Kill, was published in the same year, 1951.
In 1953 it was made into a film with a script by Eric Ambler. It starred Joel McCrae, Evelyn Keyes, Herbert Lom, Marius Goring and Roland Culver.
The story follows an ex army officer, Robert Taine, who living in the English countryside takes a shot at a man who he believes is a poacher, leading to the man's accidental death. This leads to Taine getting mixed up with foreign spies and plans to take over Great Britain.
This was a fast moving and entertaining spy novel, if not always totally believable. Recommended for people who enjoy Hammond Innes, Alistair Maclean and Helen McInnes.
This one, interestingly, has no chapter divide with the entire 127 pages (in the edition I read) continuous.
A Rough Shoot, which is also known as Shoot First, is the first of two novels by Household to feature the character Roger Taine. The second, A Time to Kill, was published in the same year, 1951.
In 1953 it was made into a film with a script by Eric Ambler. It starred Joel McCrae, Evelyn Keyes, Herbert Lom, Marius Goring and Roland Culver.
The story follows an ex army officer, Robert Taine, who living in the English countryside takes a shot at a man who he believes is a poacher, leading to the man's accidental death. This leads to Taine getting mixed up with foreign spies and plans to take over Great Britain.
This was a fast moving and entertaining spy novel, if not always totally believable. Recommended for people who enjoy Hammond Innes, Alistair Maclean and Helen McInnes.
January 4, 2021
Can't find anything more than three stars for this post-war espionage thriller. It as brief and sometimes felt like an idea that failed to develop as the author would have wished. Thoroughly British though, as a former colonel peppers the backside of a poacher with a shotgun at distance only to do more damage than just give the man a warning. But then the victim was not a poacher and was involved in much more nefarious deeds. Lots of chasing and being chased about the south of England by bicycle, car and train, aided by a Polish ex-general who should have come across as authoritative but quirky, but only appeared to me as bossy and annoying. At least the shady neo-Fascist organisation will never overcome some good old British pluck.
November 2, 2022
Escapist fantasy for the 50s husband...out hunting and he uncovers a Nazi plot. Continental schemers both good and evil, getting in the way of yeomanly Englishman who just want to have an ale and shoot some phesant. Lots of "our once merry England" "this is England" kind of stuff. Kind of a drag by the end when they are on the run honestly, when it should be most interesting. Characters paper thin except for the weird Polish general. The English authority figures, with one exception, wind up being fatherly and gentle and approving.
August 5, 2025
This is a great yarn, full of suspense but also humour. However, I couldn't help comparing it with Casino Royale, written just a year later and moving forward where Household harks back.
January 5, 2024
I fear that Household has in this case erred too far on the side of implausibility for the tale to be anything other than a "Boys Own Fun" type page turner.
June 15, 2025
A short, light spy adventure.
April 14, 2017
I picked this up at the library where I'd previously gotten Hostage: London purely on the strength of the cover. I really enjoyed that Geoffrey Household book, but this one was a disappointment. Roger Taine is less exciting as a character and the fact that he just stumbled upon the intrigue means he doesn't have much interesting to add as far as information goes. It was like reading a book I'd already read, but worse.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews