Review by Pam Marr Rybinski
Love dogs? Enjoy a good mystery? Are you curious about hound blood-lines or fox-hunting terminology? This may be a perfect book to pique your curiosity.
A setting in rural central Virginia is the backdrop for characters ranging from a few high-school seniors in-training, who show resident fox-hounds in the show ring, to the 71-year old gutsy master of foxhounds of the Jefferson Hunt Club, “Sister” Jane Arnold. In between come a wide range of hound people including some “whippers-in,” and a vet, plus several packs of American foxhounds, including Cora, the “strike hound.”
It’s not until the second unexpected death that Sister begins to think the unthinkable, i.e. that there’s a killer in the midst of their tight foxhound community. One wonders if author Rita Mae Brown herself might be the model for Sister. Not only is Brown the author of forty or so books, Brown is also the master of foxhounds of Oak Ridge Hunt Club in Afton, Virginia.
