Sting in the Tail

Three Oaks #6

by Gerald Hammond

Tail docking, practiced humanely, can give a dog an advantage in chasing pheasant through the underbrush at the well-heeled Three Oaks Kennel. But when a cheerful - if wandering - springer spaniel named Clarence returns home maliciously wounded, kennel proprietor and amateur sleuth John Cunningham smells trouble. Several neighborly squabbles and a poacher or two hanging about the well-stocked game preserve leave Cunningham with a brace of suspects at hand. But his instinct points to something darker - an overzealously militant animal-rights activist may be cruelly at work in the area. And with an important breeder's competition coming up and a party of wealthy American shooters on the way, bad publicity could bring disaster. To protect the four-legged denizens of his kennel - and the two-legged ones as well - Cunningham swings into action and sniffs out a trail of misdeeds even more menacing than he feared - a trail that leads to serious fraud and, ultimately, to a grisly murder.

Genres: Mystery

192 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1995

About the author

Gerald Hammond, (Gerald Arthur Douglas Hammond) son of Frederick Arthur Lucas (a physician) and Maria Birnie (a nursing sister) Hammond; married Gilda Isobel Watt (a nurse), August 20, 1952; children: Peter, David, Steven. Education: Aberdeen School of Architecture, Dip. Arch., 1952. He served in the British Army, 1944-45. Although born in Bournemouth, Hampshire, England, he worked in and retired to the country he most loved, Scotland.

He also writes under the names of Arthur Douglas and Dalby Holden. He was an architect for thirty years before retiring to write novels full-time in 1982. He has written over 50 novels since the late 1960s.

His novels center around guns, shooting, hunting, fishing, and dog training.

Reviews

[Abbey · Rating 3 out of 5]

#6 John Cunningham,Three Oaks Kennels, rural Scotland; comfortable “male cosy”. When a friend’s dog returns home with his tail horribly mangled, John Cunningham worries that his dogs might be next, so sets out to “ask around” to try and see if he can figure out what happened.

Another enjoyable tale of guns’n’dogs’n’whiskeypegs (rather than tea’n’cats’n’knitting), with all the cosy elements present, including a small village filled with suspects, some nasty, some nice, a big house with a body in it, a gentle family environment filled with likeable folks and lots of dogs, and a decent puzzle to solve.

This series is always juuuust barely plausible, but entertaining even so, and while it’s becoming a touch formulaic, still this is a comfortable tale about people I like, and a setting that pleases me. Not too sweet, but sometimes sentimental.

[Ellie Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

This excellent entry in the series not only introduced a new, regular character, but took us on a scenic tour of the countryside and characters around Three Oaks Farm, with extra dogs, of course. Another enjoyably told mystery.