SOURCE: "Fox Trot," in Punch, Vol. 293, October 14, 1987, p. 72.

In the following excerpt, Hastings charges that In the Pink is not on par with Balckwood's earlier works and fails to capture the romance of fox hunting.

Caroline Blackwood … is a rich, somewhat fey lady who writes excellent magazine profiles and is the author of five novels. Her own family is seated in Northern Ireland, though she says that never since she was a child has she hunted, and then only after hares rather than foxes. But she became fascinated by the fact that more people in Britain today are following hounds than at any time in history, and installed herself in a large house in Leicestershire to write a book about the phenomenon.

The outcome [In the Pink] is a series of essays, some absurdly brief, about aspects of fox-hunting—hounds, quarry, devotees, and (not least) fanatical opponents. She...