Fair Game
By Gerald Hammond
When Ray Grass died he left an estate worth millions, a valuable collection of firearms and a will full of his own mischievous sense of fun. He had been an enthusiastic sportsman and when the fatal accident enquiry brought in a verdict of accidental death, due to his carrying a loaded gun while climbing a fence, his neighbours and acquaintances shook their heads sadly at the folly of rich bachelors.
But for some of his friends such carelessness was uncharacteristic, so reluctantly (but with an eye on the gun collection) Keith Calder agreed to accompany the solicitor, Enterkin, to Grass’s estate and make his own enquiries.
Once Calder learnt the detailed facts of the ‘accidental’ death, he knew the verdict had been wrong and set about trying to prove the truth. Not an easy task, since he was surrounded by a large number of people who, in very individual and bizarre ways, would benefit hugely from Grass’s death.
He discovered that one of the policemen on the case shared his doubts. As they piece together the events of the death they find more than one murder and run into grave danger.
Born in 1926, Gerald Hammond lived in Scotland, where he retired from his profession as an architect in 1982 to pursue his love of shooting and fishing and to write full time. After his first novel, Fred in Situ, was published in 1965, Gerald became a prolific author with over 70 published novels. Most of his novels were published under his own name, but he also wrote under the pseudonyms Arthur Douglas and Dalby Holden.
