Customer Reviews

The Hunt Ball: A Novel (Foxhunting Mysteries)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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

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!

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

As always, Rita Mae Brown's characters come alive for readers. I don't think it would matter what her characters get into. They are so well written that readers just want to read more. Who would have thought that a septagenarian would make a great heroine of a cozy mystery? Who else can make animals seem so real without humanizing them too much? Whether her house pets, as in the Sneaky Pie series, or fox hounds and wildlife, are her inspirations, Rita Mae always writes winners.

If you are familiar with the Sister Jane series by Rita Mae Brown you will love this one. All the old characters are back and a few new ones.
New readers will enjoy the descriptive phrases that put you right in the heart of the Blue Ridge mountain areas. You can almost hear the horses and the hounds in the morning air.
The mystery is clear early on but getting there is always a treat.

It's wonderful to have another visit with Sister Jane and the crazy people who populate her world. I liked the mystery but the mystery isn't really why I read Rita Mae Brown's hunt books. I read them because I love rural Virginia, dogs, tales of the hunt and character studies.

I liked the fact that there weren't neat endings in this book. One of the students at the local girl's school is an emotional mess, she is making progress but doesn't miraculously turn into a great kid by the end of the book. Another plus for me was be being mercifully spared another sex scene between Sister and her enthusiastic new boyfriend in this book. That was a relief.

I only have a few complaints: I may the only one but I really think Crawford got somewhat wronged in The Hunt Ball. He's a jerk at times, he's crass, a snob, his reaction to Shaker's punch was childish and he loves to show off his wealth but his money goes a long way to making the hunt possible. In the real world Shaker should've either apologized for belting him and or had to face assault charges. The last time a likeable character messed up in this series she had to face the consequences and went to jail. Shaker's transgression is treated like it 's no big deal because he's a beloved member of the pack and Crawford is only tolerated for his money. I didn't like that. Also, the animals had too small a role in this installment of the series and I missed them.

Hunt Ball seems to be a bridge novel and should be read immediately before The Hounds and the Fury. Perhaps in a later edition the two books will be published together.

This novel is like the others in the series, which has its good and not so good things. On the one hand, you know what to expect, and if you liked Hotspur, for instance, you'll like this one. The hunts are a bit less thrilling in this book though. The pity is, you kinda see who the bad guys are early in the beginning. I love Rita Mae Browns' work, but she's kinda repeating herself lately, with the cat series and this new series (I wonder how many times I've read the line 'murders are so easy to commit, much more than people realise' in these books). I enjoyed this book, as much as I've enjoyed the others, and I'll buy the next one she writes, but I believe this one was the weakest so far in this new series. There was less human _and_ animal nature element. A very straightforward mistery, with no twists, which is kinda rare for this author. Not very complex either. Some of the new people introduced in this book were potentially very interesting, and I'm hoping she'll use them again in following books (the four school girls looked promising).
In short, you'll like it, and it'll make for a very enjoyable evening. But it won't make you think, about human nature or about delightful Virginia landscapes and/or animals, which, I don't know about you, but was what kinda hooked me up in the first place. The animals' role is minimal. And the way sister Jane gets involved in the mess is very weak (Why did they call her? When you read the book, the first thing that jumps at you is that they should have called the headmistress. Not sister Jane. Hence what I perceive as a weak story-line). The ending was kinda rushed too.
I'm an avid Rita Mae Brown fan. I live in Spain and it's really difficult to get her books, but I try. I liked Huntball, and I would have bought it anyway, but I'd probably would have bought it second hand or whatever if I'd been able to. This one left no aftertaste, no lingering deep thoughts, like the other books did. Just a pleasurable three-hour reading, and nothing more.

The Hunt Ball isn't as good a read as the other three books in this series. It seems as if Ms. Brown was distracted - the book doesn't hang together and the plot isn't very believable. The writing seems shallow and superficial.

A lot of the best thoughts and dialogue belong to the animals, especially the foxes.

Even if this book isn't the equal of other works by the author, it wasn't a bad read, and I finished it in one day.

Ms Brown's newest book was a disappointment to me. It seemed as though it were written in haste, without her usual polished prose. The first book about the Jefferson Hunt was marvelous..the second not quite as good.No doggy biscuit for this one.
The Hunt Ball lacks cohesiveness and a strong plot..Big letdown at the end. The sentences either tend to be run-on or very simple "Dick and Jane". and a great deal of needless description ...and most strange; there were innumerable references to brands of car, dress, food , and even hunting clothes and horses tack. [...]

Rita Mae Brown reads her own work in the audio version of this book, not a good decision. Sometimes (like with Barbara Kinsolver), the author's reading enhances a book. Unfortunately, Ms. Brown's inept reading was distracting. I think, overall, I liked the book, as I've liked all her previous works. But with her very odd pacing (she sometimes ran names together, so for the first several chapters I thought there were nuns in the book - Sister Charlotte, for example) and her inability to "voice" the characters differently, I kept getting lost. Several times I had no clue whether the speaker was animal or human. I'd not read any of the Hunt Club books before; maybe it would have helped if I had already known all the characters.