The Most Dangerous Game (Gavin Lyall novel)

infobox Book |
name = The Most Dangerous Game
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption = First edition cover
author = Gavin Lyall
cover_artist =
country = United Kingdom
language = English
series =
genre = Spy, Thriller, Novel
publisher = Hodder & Stoughton
release_date = 1964
media_type = Print (Hardback & Paperback)
pages = 255 pp (hardback edition) & 224 pp (paperback edition)
isbn = ISBN 0-340-53023-5 (paperback edition)
preceded_by = The Wrong Side of the Sky
followed_by = Midnight Plus One

"The Most Dangerous Game" is a first person narrative novel by English author Gavin Lyall, first published in 1964.

Plot introduction

Bill Cary is a bush pilot living in Lapland in northern Finland, making a precarious living flying aerial survey flights looking for nickel deposits, and occasional charter cargo flights of dubious legitimacy in his beat-up old de Havilland Beaver. Towards the end of the flying season, a wealthy American hunter hires him to fly into a prohibited part of Finland near the Soviet border in order to hunt bear. Subsequently, he is assaulted by thugs when he refuses a charter contract to search for a lost Tsarist treasure, comes under suspicion from the Finnish police for smuggling when Tsarist-era gold sovereigns start turning up, and from the Finnish secret police for espionage. However, things get more serious when the wealthy American's hunter's beautiful sister turns up to search for her brother, and his fellow bush pilots start getting killed off in a series of suspicious accidents. Carr suspects that the events he in increasingly involved in may stem from an incident in his wartime past.

The plot of the Gavin Lyall novel is totally different from the earlier and arguablyweasel more famous "The Most Dangerous Game" short story about hunting humans as a sport.

Literary significance & criticism

The Most Dangerous Game was a runner-up for the British Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger Award in 1964. [Guardian obituary, "infra."]

References