Outfoxed - Softcover

Brown, Rita Mae

3.83

1,863 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0345428196 ISBN 13: 9780345428196

Publisher: Ballantine Books, 2000

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As Master of a prestigious hunt club, Jane Arnold, known as Sister, is the most revered citizen in the Virginia Blue Ridge Mountain town where a rigid code of social conduct and deep-seated tradition carries more weight than money. Nearing seventy, Sister now must select a joint master to ensure the club's future. It is an honor of the highest order--and one that any serious social climber would covet like the Holy Grail.

When the competition flares up between two determined candidates, Southern gentility flies out the window. Soon the entire town is pulled into a rivalry that is spiraling dangerously out of control. Even the animals have strong opinions. But when opening hunt day ends in murder, Sister is stunned. Now, with the help of a few clever foxes and hounds, she must lay the trap to catch the killer.

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Review:

Rita Mae Brown fervently believes that felines are a lot smarter than most people, and in her popular Mrs. Murphy mysteries, the cats are always leaps and bounds ahead of their human companions. (They also speak in italics, which makes it easy to distinguish them from their somewhat bumbling owner/companions.) In Outfoxed the foxes, hounds, and a few clever birds solve a murder that's hardly more than a raison d'�tre for Brown's thorough and detailed description of the highly ritualized world of the Jefferson Hunt. Fox hunting is more than just an entertaining way to spend a fall afternoon in Virginia--it's a way of life for everyone involved, from Sister Jane, the Master of the Fox Hunt, to Crawford Howard and Fontaine Buruss, two men who'd kill for the chance to succeed her. By the time a death actually occurs, Brown is three-fourths of the way to the last page, but it doesn't really matter; by this point, the reader is wholly involved in the arcane world of casts, whippers, scent stations, ratshots, and the social rules of the canid and canine communities. And while a man has been murdered, it's the slaughter of the fox used to lure him to his death that really upsets Sister, the strong-willed matriarch who is the novel's protagonist. The thrill of the chase--the hunt itself, not the search for the killer--is on every page of this masterful foray into a fascinating world. And as usual in a Rita Mae Brown novel, the animals have the best lines as well as the last word. --Jane Adams

About the Author:

Rita Mae Brown is the bestselling author of Rubyfruit Jungle, In Her Day, Six of One, Southern Discomfort, Sudden Death, High Hearts, Bingo, Starting from Scratch: A Different Kind of Writer's Manual, Venus Envy, Dolley: A Novel of Dolley Madison in Love and War, Riding Shotgun, Loose Lips, and a memoir, Rita Will. With her tiger cat, Sneaky Pie, she also collaborates on the popular Mrs. Murphy mystery series, including Murder on the Prowl. An Emmy-nominated screenwriter and a poet, she lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.

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