Product Description

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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #310041 in Books
• Published on: 2003-11-04
• Released on: 2003-11-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 352 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780345428233
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
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.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
While burying a dead horse, several members of the Jefferson Hunt Club uncover a human body. Seventysomething master of the hunt Jane Arnold recognizes the ring on the skeleton's finger. It belonged to a sexy young club member who, along with her boyfriend, disappeared 21 years earlier. Later, the young man's skeleton is also found. Having believed that she knew her club's members well, Jane is stunned to realize that one or more of them may be murderers. Determined to uncover the killer, she sets a trap (which is very contrived, compelling the reader to suspend disbelief). Despite the promising beginning, this follow-up to Outfoxed ultimately disappoints. There is too much tell and not enough show, and endless dialog from the human and animal characters distracts rather than adds to the plot. Recommended only for public libraries with avid Brown fans.
--Patsy E. Gray, Huntsville
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
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
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

for fans of the Mrs. Murphy series
There is a small little town in Virginia that is quite quaint and magical, a place where the animals understand and speak to one another. The most influential people in town belong to the Jefferson Hunt Club, an organization where humans, horses and hounds combine to flush out the foxes. One day while walking the horses and hounds, the hound master "Sister" Jane Arnold sees an old horse that died in his sleep on After All farm.

Sister organizes the horse's burial but before it can be put in the ground, the body of a woman wearing a sapphire ring is dug up. The body is that of Nola, the daughter of Tedi and Edward Bancroft. The young woman disappeared one day in 1981. Also vanishing at the same time as Nola was Guy Ramy, her boyfriend and the sheriff's son. his body as shortly found later. Sister, with the help of some friends, both human and animal, are able to solve the decades old murders and bring peace to two grieving families.

Fans of the Mrs. Murphy series are going to love HOTSPUR, an enchanting tale where the animals delight the reader with their ready wit, common sense and love for their humans. Sister is a memorable heroine who knows how to guide the members of the Jefferson Hunt Club in the direction she wants them to go. Reader will want to finish this book in one sitting so they can find out who the killer is and what the motive was.

Harriet Klausner

enjoyable, but not quite what I was expecting...
Fortunately for me, I'd borrowed "Hotspur" from the library. The trouble was not that the book was poorly written or that it was terribly uninteresting and banal. The trouble was that I was expecting a mystery novel along the lines of Rita Mae Brown's "Wish You Were Here" & "Rest in Pieces;" the trouble was that the mystery plot kept getting sidelined by the ruminations of the animals (foxes, horses, owls, etc) and the politics of the Jefferson Hunt club. Another problem was that I couldn't for the life of me figure out how the title fitted into the novel. Indications seem to suggest that one of the characters had a Hotspur-like personality, except that I couldn't quite see it. But perhaps that fault lies with me.

"Hotspur" centers on the murder of Nola Bancroft. Nola, was the beautiful and capricious younger daughter of the well heeled Bancrofts, Edward and Tedi. And about twenty-one years ago, she disappeared. Since she was dating the sheriff's dashing son, Guy, and her parents openly disapproved of that relationship, everyone assumed when the couple suddenly disappeared that Nola and Guy had eloped. But as the years passed and nothing was heard of the pair, local gossip also included the speculation that Guy had murdered Nola in a fit of anger and left town in order to avoid arrest. The recent discovery of Nola's body now bolsters the latter theory. But "Sister" Jane Arnold, Master of the Jefferson Hunt Club doesn't believe that Guy murdered Nola, and she's determined to discover what really happened even if it means reopening old wounds and stirring things up -- even a murderer's ire...

While I rather enjoyed Brown's descriptions of the Virginian countryside, the ins and outs of what goes on in a hunt club, and her character-descriptions of both the animals and humans (and what makes certain individuals tick), I still felt that a lot could have been left out since "Hotspur" was supposed to be (primarily) a murder mystery novel. For example, Nola's body is discovered at the end of chapter 1, and yet it is not until somewhere around chapter 15 that Brown delves into the mystery subplot again. And since I had checked out the book on the strength that it was supposed to be a mystery novel, this really left me feeling a little frustrated.

"Hotspur" is not a bad read. If you enjoy books about small towns, with well developed characters, and bits about nature and animals and our (human) relationship with animals (and theirs with us), and don't really mind that the mystery subplot takes a long while to get underway, than you will probably not be disappointed with "Hotspur." But be advised, Brown does take a while to get into the mystery of who murdered Nola and why.

Rita Mae at her best
While spottedtowhee obviously disagrees, as a self-described conservative Southerner I prefer Rita Mae's light hearted hunting and animal descriptions to her older "controversial" work. This book is an excellent choice for anyone interested in animal welfare, Virginia hunt country, fox hunting, and horses. The animals do talk to each other but it flows more smoothly in this book than in some others of the Sneaky Pie variety where the dialogue seems a little contrived.

It would be helpful to read "Outfoxed" before Hotspur. As I maintain two residences I don't have my copy of Outfoxed handy, but I thought one of the provisions of Peter Wheeler's will was that Doug become joint master. In Hotspur he has been shipped off to a neighboring hunt and does not participate in the story; I missed him.

I suspect we haven't seen the last of Carter Howard and I look forward to another installment in the life of the Jefferson Hunt's members.