The Hunt Ball

July 11, 2005
The most appealing characters in Brown's underplotted new mystery are the animals, even without Sneaky Pie's coauthorship. Septuagenarian "Sister" Jane Arnold, the Master of the central Virginia Jefferson Hunt Club, returns from Brown hunt titles like Outfoxed
to solve the murder of a local prep school teacher. Not a snob when it comes to class or looks, Sister is a tremendous snob regarding hunt etiquette and respect for animals. And in Brown's fictive world, every fox, hound, horse, dog and bird is given a name, personality, backstory and dialogue. All can converse with each other—and understand the humans—while Sister has the ability to sense what the animals are thinking. The hunt scenes are luminous; the plot is obligatory, if premised on politically inspiring grounds. When a group of students stages a demonstration focused on the unacknowledged role of slaves in the prep school's history, and a beloved staff member is found murdered, things get tense at Custis Hall. But the impending annual hunt ball (scene, of course, of the eventual denouement) provides ample distraction. No foxes were harmed in the writing of this book.

July 1, 2005
That this latest offering from Brown is an extended homage to foxhunting with a thin mystery plot tossed in doesn't really matter. Not even the huge cast of characters in the front of the book--a daunting 16 humans and 25 animals--will dissuade fans of the prolific Brown, who has earned the devotions of diverse readers through an entertaining mystery series starring her cat, Sneaky Pie, and numerous mainstream novels, both -historical and contemporary. Her latest in the Jane Arnold series (" Outfoxed," 1999) is short on plot but big on fun, with her quirky animal and human characters providing plenty of high jinks. And Virginia native Brown convincingly evokes the beauty of the central part of that state, while imparting interesting facts about its history. This story centers again on Jane "Sister" Arnold, the seventysomething master of foxhounds at the Jefferson Hunt Club. This time the venerable Sister joins with the headmistress of neighboring Custis Hall, the local prep school, to solve the murder of a costumed faculty member found dead following the -Halloween festivities. Brown's passion for foxhunting is evident throughout; fellow bloodsporters will be fine with the minute details of the hunt, but others may be less than entranced.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)