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Summary
Summary
In her well-received novel Outfoxed, Rita Mae Brown vividly and deftly brought to life the genteel world of foxhunting, where hunters, horses, hounds, and foxes form a tightly knit community amidst old money and simmering conflicts. With Hotspur, we return to the Southern chase--and to a hunt on the trail of a murderer. Jane "Sister" Arnold may be in her seventies, but she shows no signs of losing her love for the Hunt. As Master of the prestigious Jefferson Hunt Club in a well-heeled Virginia Blue Ridge Mountain town, she is the most powerful and revered woman in the county. She can assess the true merits of a man or a horse with uncanny skill. In short, Sister Jane is not easily duped. When the skeleton of Nola Bancroft, still wearing an exquisite sapphire ring on her finger, is unearthed, it brings back a twenty-one year old mystery. Beautiful Nola was a girl who had more male admirers than her family had money, which was certainly quite a feat. In a world where a woman's ability to ride was considered one of her most important social graces, Nola was queen of the stable. She had a weakness for men, and her tastes often ventured towards the inappropriate, like the sheriff's striking son, Guy Ramy. But even Guy couldn't keep her eyes from wandering. When Nola and Guy disappeared on the Hunt's ceremonial first day of cubbing more than two decades ago, everyone assumed one of two things: Guy and Nola eloped to escape her family's disapproval; or Guy killed Nola in a jealous rage and vanished. But Sister Jane had never bought either of those theories. Sister knows that all the players are probably still in place, the old feuds haven't died, and the sparks that led to a long-ago murder could flare up at any time. Hotspur brings all of Rita Mae Brown's storytelling gifts to the fore. It's a tale of Southern small-town manners and rituals, a compelling and intricate murder mystery, and a look at the human/animal relationship in all its complexity and charm. From the Hardcover edition.
Author Notes
Rita Mae Brown was born in Hanover, Pennsylvania, on November 28, 1944. She received an associate's degree from Broward Junior College in 1965, a B.A. in English and classics from New York University in 1968, a Cinematography Degree from the School of the Visual Arts in 1968, and a Ph.D. in English and political science from the Institute for Policy Studies in 1976. She was the writer-in-residence at the Women's Writing Center of Cazenovi College and a visiting instructor teaching fiction writing at the University of Virginia.
After publishing two books of poetry, she published her first novel, Rubyfruit Jungle, in 1973. Her works include The Hand that Cradles the Rock, Sudden Death, Venus Envy, Loose Lips, and Rita Will: Memoir of a Literary Rabble-Rouser. She writes the Mrs. Murphy Mystery series and Foxhunting Mysteries series. She also writes screenplays and teleplays including Sweet Surrender, Room to Move, Table Dancing, and The Long Hot Summer. Her work on TV earned several Emmy nominations and she received the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Variety Show in 1982 for I Love Liberty.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Tally-ho! From bestseller Brown (Outfoxed and many other delicious books) comes a dashing and vibrant novel that revolves around foxhunting. The rolling hills of central Virginia are home to the Jefferson Hunt-and to scores of sly foxes, red, black and gray. When 34-year-old Peppermint dies peacefully of natural causes, the grave dug for the beloved horse uncovers the skeleton of Nola Bancroft, identifiable by her ring, the Hapsburg sapphire. The ravishing Nola disappeared without a trace from Sorrel Burrus's party 21 years earlier, leaving behind a shocked and, eventually, mourning father and mother, Edward and Tedi, and a sister, Sibyl. Many members of the hunt thought she'd eloped with handsome (but socially inferior) Guy Ramy, the sheriff's son, who went missing at the same time. Seventy-one-year-old Master of the Hunt Jane "Sister" Arnold soon finds herself searching for human prey as well as foxes. The author portrays the hunt family with such warmth and luxury of detail, one feels a friendship with each and every character, animals included. The reader will romp through the book like a hunter on a thoroughbred, never stopping for a meal or a night's sleep. A glossary of useful terms will aid those who've never ridden to the hounds. (Dec. 2) FYI: Brown is also the author with Sneaky Pie Brown of Catch as Cat Can (Forecasts, Feb. 11) and other titles in her Mrs. Murphy mystery series. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Resurrecting the gabby hounds, foxes, horses, owls, pussycats, and humans of Charlottesville, Virginia (Outfoxed, 2000, etc.), Brown has them all talking about the latest travail in the sanguinary history of the Jefferson Hunt Club: A morning ride under the auspices of Master of the Hunt, septuagenarian "Sister" Jane Arnold, accidentally unearths a corpse that's been interred for 21 years. Equally upsetting to all is the discovery a short time later of another long-dead corpse. Who killed and hid the high-spirited coquette Nola and the most serious of her beaux, movie-star handsome Guy? Surely it couldn't be work plotted decades ago by a Hunt Club member! Between endless discussions of dog-training, horse-jumping, boot-polishing, and the occasional witty aphorism ("Nobody's worthless. They can always serve as a horrible example"), Brown tosses in the Hapsburg Sapphire dinner ring as a red herring and Nola's sister's whopping inheritance as a motive, and even another body-poor dear Ralph, shot dead in the fog while returning from a hunt-for titillation. But it is up to the indomitable Sister to mount a sting (on horseback, of course) that will corral the guilty just in time for the official opening of the Fall Hunt season. Brown, who would make an excellent color commentator should ESPN decide to televise fox-hunting, continues her insufferable habit of anthropomorphizing birds, felines, dogs, mares, and so on. Just right, as usual, for readers who like this sort of thing.
Booklist Review
Old mysteries come to light when an elderly gray hunting horse dies. The digging of a grave for it unearths a skeleton wearing a huge sapphire and diamond ring that had belonged to beautiful Nola Bancroft, who disappeared 20 years ago, in 1981. Guy Ramy, son of Sheriff Ramy, had been courting Nola, much to the disapproval of the headstrong young woman's family, who had sought a better match for her. When Nola and Guy vanished without a word, everyone had assumed they had run off together. With the discovery of Nola's skeleton, suspicion falls on Guy, but he is still nowhere to be found. "Sister" Jane Arnold is in her seventies but has lost none of her keenness for the hunt, in every sense of the word. She puts her shrewd instincts to work to solve the murder in a page-turner filled with wry observations of small-town southern life. Brown combines her strengths--exploring southern families, manners, and rituals as well as the human-animal bond--to bring in a winner. --Whitney Scott
Library Journal Review
Remember Outfoxed? Brown returns to the hunt with this story of an older woman, disillusioned with chasing after hounds, who instead finds herself chasing after a murderer. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.