Customer Reviews

Outfoxed

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

There are a few places left in Virginia where time seems to have stopped and the mindset remains the same as that of a hundred-plus years ago. The Jefferson Hunt Club and the immediate vicinity surrounding the facility are the epitome of the antebellum lifestyle enriched by twenty-first century technology. This small corner of the globe contains individuals steeped in a special heritage with genteel manners and seething passions especially for the Hunt led by popular Jane "Sister" Arnold.

Sister is the master of the Hunt and has been for more years than many participants have lived. She currently inspects the horses, dogs, and foxes that will participate in the next Hunt. The animals are as intelligent as the humans and communicate amongst themselves. Sister has begun to feel her age and believes it is time to select a joint master to continue the tradition after she dies. However, during the Hunt, one of the leading contenders is murdered. This leaves everyone to wonder how far someone will go to eliminate the competition.

Anyone who loves Sneaky Pie and Rita Mae Brown's Mrs. Murphy series will want to read OUTFOXED. The story line centers on the tightly closed American foxhunt scenario that is a part of our American heritage. The lead protagonist is a wise person who the audience will enjoy for her compassion for all that is alive and her leadership abilities. However, this novel belongs to the animals that make readers believe they can talk and think in a logical humanistic manner that Dr. Doolittle and Murphy would envy.

Harriet Klausner

An exciting murder in the hunt field. Move over sheriff, it will take a special MFH and a pack of foxhounds to solve this one. Rita Mae Brown has done herself proud with this book. Once again, we are taken to the hills of Virginia to find a murder. If you love horses or the Mrs. Murphy series, this book is a must.

I am getting the distinct feeling that many people are not happy with this information concerning fox hunting in America. Myself, I find it interesting (since Virgina is barely a hop, skip, and a jump away from Pennsylvania). Also, many readers are a little skeptical of Brown's anthromorphizing of the animals in her book. Even though we do not understand everything there is to know about animals, I do know as a scientist that many of the past ways of looking at animals are untrue. For years, scientists said animals did not play. That's been disproven on many fronts. When was the last time you saw an otter? Sometimes I think all they do is play and preen themselves. And zoos are now giving animals all kinds of 'human' things like balls, ropes, etc. because they found out that animals like bears and monkees are prone to depression if they don't have much to play with, or never see anything new to explore.

Enough of the ranting. I enjoyed this book. It obviously came before one of her other books I read with 'Sister' in it. Some of the talk between the animals is absolutely hilarious, just because I can imagine the dumb things that we do as humans probably amuse them. As for animals like foxes becoming used to people, it does happen...we went camping and had three skunks as visitors, who would munch on marshmallows for an hour while around the campfire, and then left to bug someone else. Screams all over the campsite but no one got sprayed. Those skunks knew we were a source of treats. I don't recommend feeding wild animals usually, and especially with rabies in raccons and skunks. But these guys were harmless, and just after our food. I imagine the animals got a big kick out of scaring campers too.

Rita Mae Brown has always been a favorite of mine, and will continue to be as she writes. She is a good writer, and I happen to like the dialogue between humans and between animals. This is a method of writing that has been around for a long time...remember Watership Down, and of course, Animal Farm by George Orwell. This is just a light and enjoyable read. When you have to read bioethics and science stuff all the time, it is nice to have something like this at your bedside.

Karen Sadler

I love Rita Mae, I've read just about everything she's written, and I looked forward to this mystery which did not feature Mrs. Murphy (I thought it would be a nice change of pace for me).

Well, you could say Mrs. Murphy is there, in spirit anyway. In Outfoxed were are treated to talking foxhounds, cats, horses, owls, foxes, etc., all of whom have rather high opinions of themselves. To bill this novel as a mystery would be misleading as well, as the mystery doesn't happen until after the reader has plowed through nearly 1/2 book, which actually provides a detailed look at foxhunting.

I've never been foxhunting, but thanks to RMB I have a better picture of it. One thing I found interesting is that Sister Arnold appeared to be more upset with the murder of an animal than with the human being found dead. Like other reviewers, I do wonder if this novel has thinly veiled autobiographical tones.

I would recommend this book to die-hard RMB fans. I imagine others might get a headache from the chattering forest of four-footed folk.

I think my background as a former foxhunter, horse and hound (both foxhounds and bassets) owner, increased my enjoyment of this book. Origionally a "hunting to ride" participant, I evolved into a "riding to hunt" person. Consequently, the dialogue of the hounds, foxes, and horses seemed very reasonable and natural. The politics, egos, plus good and bad manners and horsemanship of the characters were true to my experiences. At times I paid more attention to the dialog and actions than to the mystery to be solved. It was nice not to have someone killed within the first 30 pages. Instead there was ample time for the story's geographic, social, and technical settings to be painted for the reader. Since one pleasure of reading I enjoy is the chance to learn about new things, I recommend this book as an outstanding introduction to foxhunting.

What a delightful book and a joy to read. As always with Ms. Brown, I hated to finish the book and know I will read it again.

Born and raised in Virginia, I had no idea what was involved in fox hunting prior to starting OUTFOXED. One of the best things about reading is learning, and as always, Rita Mae teaches through her work. The character development of both the humans and animals was excellent and solving the mystery was great fun.

I hope there will be future "Sister" Jane Arnold books to further embellish the characters introduced in OUTFOXED. I felt a kindred spirit with her, her friends and acquaintances and, especially, the menagerie of critters. Three Cheers and Five Stars!

I feel compelled to preface this review with the comment that I absolutely stand in awe of Rita Mae Brown. From RUBY FRUIT JUNGLE to her recent autobiography, I find her compelling, down-to-earth, intriguing, a thought-provoker with strong opinions and a writing style that always draws me in and keeps me there until the last page; and then I'm never ready to stop reading - I only stop because the book ends and it would make me look stupid if I kept looking at it. Okay, the point I'm trying NOT to get to is...I found OUTFOXED to be puzzling to say the least. Maybe I just don't want to know that much about foxhunting and the people who do it - there didn't seem to be enough concentration on developing a plot in this story. It was more about the ins and outs of foxes and hounds. I'm very willing to concede that the subject matter just isn't my cup of tea, but the author seemed to skim over the storyline and focus her energies on explaining the process of approaching the hunt. I finished it, but only becuase it was written by the amazing Rita Mae Brown.

I get the feeling that she is just so crazy about the subject of foxhunting that she just decided to write about it and all the aspects she finds so fascinating. It almost seemed to be an essay and that's okay, I just was not drawn in - the writing felt a little too much like a lecture and that wasn't what I expected.

I'm very curious about the reaction of others to this book. I'd love to hear that it's somebody's favorite and that I was just in a fuzzy state of mind. I'm pretty sure I was supposed to draw some conclusions and gain insights from the animal behavior and the humans, too; but there were a few too many cliches and generalizations incorporated in OUTFOXED - regarding human behavior and the lack of integrity displayed by so many of her characters; and what appeared to me to be a certain acceptance of their disloyalty and deceptiveness as just about all you can expect from even the cream of the crop. I wanted to read more about the two sisters and how they dealt with their particular conflicts, but got only a summary of events and then it's back to the hounds.

I could read SOUTHERN DISCOMFORT, BINGO, VENUS ENVY and RUBY FRUIT JUNGLE over and over and pick up something new each time. This latest offering left me feeling not outfoxed, but definitly outside the inner circle.

I'm from Western Pennsylvania, home of the Rolling Rock Hunt Club, which I was around although not a member. I had a 16'2" thoroughbred hunter, whipped-in with the Beagling pack on exercise runs a few times (beagles are to rabbits as hounds are to foxes)and the vivid descriptions brought back memories of the beautiful countryside & that whole hunt club milieu.

I *loved* this book & its characters. The mystery was incidental, in fact, I'd have preferred straight fiction, forget the murder. I want more about the characters and their continuing lives! Though, mysteries sell better and the murder slowly emerged after lots of character development, a huge plus.

I was loaned this book by my friend the librarian who enjoyed it but clearly not as much as I did (I could hardly sleep after the description of the opening hunt, it was so exciting). We agree that it's one of those books where equine-aphiles (is that a word?) will be in love with the book and the rest of the world will like it a little less. I just hope that there are enough of us, or that Ms. Brown has enough of a compelling itch to write about hunts, that the series continues. (Let's face it, it's a pretty small world compared to the world of cat and dog lovers that she taps into with the Sneaky Pie books.) Sign me up as one of those devoted-to-the-series readers. Please continue with this as a series!

I really like Rita Mae Brown's work. I like the interaction between people and animals and I love that the animals usually figure out something's amiss long before their human counterpoints catch on.

OUTFOXED tells the story of a murder in the genteel Virginia countryside amidst the rigid regulations of the fox hunting crowd. While I enjoyed the story, I felt she gave her reader entirely too much information on every single detail of the hunt, the attire, the horses and the hounds. I'd be worn out before I ever cleared the first fence if I participated in the sport.

If you're interested, this book could certainly serve as a primer on the equine etiquette of the hunt. It was just a bit too much for me.

Enjoy!

The *only* reason this isn't a five-star review is because personally I found the mystery plot to be a bit thin. So if you're not into the equestrian scene, I can see where it might be disappointing. For me, however, it was a delight from start to finish, with excellent characters (both human and animal), accurate and witty social observation, and lots of lovely detail on the fine points of hunting, a lot of which I'd forgotten about. I'll be coming back to this one again and again!