Bird Brain by Guy Kennaway

Basil Peyton-Crumbe is a multi-millionaire landowner. An embattled man known to all, even his dogs, as ‘Banger’, he claims to have despatched at least 41,000 pheasants with the cheap old 12-bore he’s had since childhood. Shooting pheasants, he believes, is ‘an exquisite accomplishment’, as complex as writing a sonata or designing a cathedral.

On the first page of this bloodthirsty novel, Banger’s trusty old gun explodes in his hands and blows half his head off. No one seems particularly upset. Not his half-brother William, who succeeds to the estate, and certainly not his Springer Spaniel, Jam. Dismissing his dying employer as ‘a selfish oaf’, ‘fat arse’ and ‘grouchy old bastard’,  Jam longs to give the delicious-looking wound a good lick.

But now the fun starts. Poor old Banger finds himself instantly re-incarnated as a pheasant embryo, one of thousands of unhatched eggs on a nearby game farm. He and his fluffy friends are soon out and about, listening to Radio 4, even The Archers repeats, and entertaining each other with farting displays.