Karen

I think it is worthwhile, but you may want to take five and write something less demanding on the research front?

A couple of other things came to mind after posting the review:

1. The simile about the officer sending men to die and shooting grouse is slightly wrong in the following sense: The beaters, who drive the birds towards the guns are usually not the toffs. I don't think your toff baddy would portray himself as a beater. You need to research the shooting fraternity a bit. For example, some people have 'walking shoots', where the guns double as beaters. If James had fallen on hard times, he would probably get his shooting from walking shoots, rather than driven shoots, where the beaters drive the birds towards the guns.

2. Snipers can usually produce some of the best suspense going. The odious comparison being the Enemy at the Gates. I felt you slightly jumped off the sniping here, as if you didn't have a enough knowledge of it. Sniping is more like deer stalking, and is probably a better device to use than grouse shooting. I would make James in command of the sniper unit. Give him a background of stalking deer in Scotland. But you really need to build and exploit the tension in the sniping, especially if you are going for a novel.

Andrew Memory... What was that?