WHOSE DOG ARE YOU?
by Gerald Hammond
Out duck-hunting one early morning, the dog-breeding, hunting expert John Cunningham and his sweet kennel-keeper bride Beth (Dog in the Dark) discover a body and, nearby, a dog running loose. The body is eventually identified as one David Falconer—an American con-man whose scam in Scotland seems to have left an elusive partner, a missing fortune, a wife back in Texas, and the spaniel- object of an attempted snatch at Cunningham's farm that leaves him with a black eye and torn shoulder. Falconer's widow's high-paying bid for the dog takes him on a secretive mission to the US, but it doesn't help when he becomes a prime suspect in Falconer's murder. The denouement is clever—along with nicely realized minor characters and the Scottish background, the best part of a story most pleasing to gun-, hunting-, and dog-fanciers, moderately entertaning to others.