Product Description

“A rich, atmospheric murder mystery . . . rife with love, scandal . . . redemption, greed and nobility,” raved the San Jose Mercury News about Outfoxed, Rita Mae Brown’s first foxhunting masterpiece. In The Hunt Ball, the latest novel in this popular series, all the ingredients Brown’s readers love are abundantly present: richness of character and landscape, the thrill of the hunt, and the chill of violence.

The trouble begins at Custis Hall, an exclusive girls’ school in Virginia that has gloried in its good name for nearly two hundred years. At first, the outcry is a mere tempest in a silver teapot–a small group of students protesting the school’s exhibit of antique household objects crafted by slaves–and headmistress Charlotte Norton quells the ruckus easily. But when one of the two hanging corpses ornamenting the students’ Halloween dance turns out to be real–the body of the school’s talented fund-raiser, in fact–Charlotte and the entire community are stunned. Everyone liked Al Perez, or so it seemed, yet his murder was particularly unpleasant.

Even “Sister” Jane Arnold, master of the Jefferson Hunt Club, beloved by man and beast, is at a loss, although she knows better than anyone where the bodies are buried in this community of land-grant families and new-money settlers. Aided and abetted by foxes and owls, cats and hounds, Sister picks up a scent that leads her in a most unwelcome direction: straight to the heart of the foxhunting crowd. The chase is on, not only for foxes but also for a deadly human predator.

No one has created a fictional paradise more delightful than the rolling hills of Rita Mae Brown’s Virginia countryside, or has more charmingly captured the rituals of the hunt. No one understands human and animal nature more deeply. The Hunt Ball combines a rounded, welcoming world with an edge of unforgettable white-knuckled menace.


From the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #95538 in Books
• Published on: 2006-09-26
• Released on: 2006-09-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

From Publishers Weekly
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. (On sale Aug. 30)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
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. Jenny McLarin
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
Praise for Rita Mae Brown

Full Cry

“A great ride with heroine ‘Sister’ Jane Arnold.”
–Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“A quality tale that is over all too soon.”
–Charleston Post and Courier

Hotspur

“A dashing and vibrant novel . . . The reader will romp through the book like a hunter on a thoroughbred, never stopping for a meal or a night’s sleep.”
–Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Brown combines her strengths–exploring southern families, manners, and rituals as well as the human—animal bond–to bring in a winner.”
–Booklist

Outfoxed

“A snappy mystery . . . [Brown] does a masterly job of putting you in the saddle.”
–Baltimore Sun

“Compelling . . . engaging . . . [a] sly whodunit [with] a surprise finish.”
–People


From the Hardcover edition.

Customer Reviews

Interesting read about hunting in America...
I had read older books about hunting in England and found it to be a tad distasteful. The thought of a bunch of wealthy and overdressed hoodlums chasing after a fox with dogs trained to kill, and then corner the poor thing and kill it while putting the blood of the fox on the person who brought the fox down like ashes on Catholics on Ash Wednesday...the whole thing struck me as very uncivilized. No wonder Britain was the place where the antivivisectionist movement started!

Apparently, this has changed significantly in the U.S. and for the better. There are still going to be people who object to this form of entertainment as stressful for the foxes, but I don't know. Having studied animals for years and seeing that almost all of the mammals have a tendency to play (do things for no reason except entertainment...like otters), I can see where foxes would enjoy a hunt. They apparently ceased to kill the fox and actually help these animals survive during harsh winters and move them if their dens are close to danger. This is a big difference in attitude.

The book is a mystery, but the mystery in this one tends to take the background to the hunt and the history of the hunt. The mystery is interesting in that it involves the stealing of valuable parts of American history in preparatory schools. I get the feeling that this book was written on something that came up in the news down in Virginia or that area. It would be all too easy to create fakes for things like George Washington's epaulettes, and then sale the real thing to the highest bidder (who often is someone out of our country).

I enjoy Rita Mae Brown's books, especially the conversations of the animals about us humans, who could take a few lessons from them. I know Brown is anthromorphizing her animals, but we really cannot say what they are and are not capable of doing. So in the meantime, I'll continue to enjoy Brown's mystery and history.

Karen Sadler

Another great visit with Sister and the JHC
The Hunt Ball kept me enthralled in the continuing story of Sister and the central Virginia Jefferson Hunt Club. I love the way the animal characters are full participants in the plot development. (Do I detect the influence of Sneaky Pie Brown?) While each novel works independently, I can hardly wait to see how the next book in the series picks up the continuing plot lines and takes off with them. Tally Ho!

fine personification mystery
In Virginia, the students led by the "Three Musketeers" protest that their all girls' prep school Custis Hall fails to properly credit slaves for creating some of the crafts on display. Though worthy, nothing really comes of their protest at least that is what everyone involved thought at the time.

Everybody associated with Custis Hall seems to like good natured Al Perez. That is everyone except the person who murdered the director of alumnae affairs and fund raising for the school. His corpse hangs next to a "dummy" dead body at the students' Halloween dance. Though stunned by the homicide, Headmistress Charlotte Norton remains calm and keeps everyone else relatively composed.

At about the same time, seventy-two years old "Sister" Jane Arnold, the Master of the Virginia Jefferson Hunt Club, learns of the death. She begins making inquires assisted by her beloved animals but no motive seems to surface. Still Jane assisted by the Three Musketeers and her assortment of foxhounds, horses, foxes, birds, and other "house pets" keeps digging not realizing that someone is watching how close the menagerie gets to the truth

Though Sneaky Pie is not a co-author, the animals have distinct personalities, names and traits and are able to communicate with one another; something the dumb humans except Jane fail to comprehend. The hunt and its related ball are vividly described so that the audience gets a taste of an upper crust event. The who-done-it is cleverly developed but takes a back seat to the antics of the animals (as is the case in most of Ms. Brown's novels). Fans of the author will enjoy watching the humans OUTFOXED by the animals at THE HUNT BALL.

Harriet Klausner