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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
for fans of the Mrs. Murphy series,
This review is from: Hotspur (Hardcover)
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
12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Rita Mae at her best,
By A Customer
This review is from: Hotspur (Hardcover)
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.
10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
enjoyable, but not quite what I was expecting...,
By tregatt (Portland, Oregon) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Hotspur (Hardcover)
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.
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