Didn't finish, couldn't quite go the talking animals ( )

A fun book in many ways, mostly because Brown captures horse & fox hunting people so well. It gets 5 stars for that. Sister reminds me a lot of my mother, who is also 71 (72 next week) and still charges about on horseback 4 or 5 times a week with her local hunt. Mom's not a Master, but was a Whip for a couple of decades & she carried a .38 pistol in that job. Some scenes were just perfect.

Brown really captures the thrill of the chase & the fact that's what it is. While it's called Fox Hunting & is modeled on the English sport of the same name, American hunts don't & never have (to the best of my knowledge) actually hunted the fox. They just chase them around until they go to ground & then call off pack. It's fun for all involved, including the fox. I've seen them lead packs into terrible situations & then sit off to the side watching the fun.

Terriers aren't carried & fox hounds can't fit into a fox den, so the fox is perfectly safe once inside. Kills are very rare, generally restricted to maimed (leg trap escapees) or dying (mange, distemper) foxes. Due to lack of space, many hunts are just drag hunts now. Those don't have anything to do with a wild fox. Folks just follow around the pack running on the scent laid down by a dragged sack.

There was a bit too much anthropomorphism for me. Fox, cats, dogs, & horses all chatter back & forth in a fairly ridiculous way, but they do provide good information & some might find it cute.

A few of Brown's facts seem off to me. She mentions what I thought were full grown red foxes weighing 5 & 8 lbs. I think adults average more like 20lbs. Shaker hunted a pack that was close to 3 times as large as what I'm familiar with. A dozen couple (24) was about usual, as I recall, but Brown has him hunting 20 to 30 couple hounds. I'd guess couples got counted as singles in an editing goof.

The murder mystery was good, although clues were sparse and there were a lot of characters. I didn't read (don't have) the first book, [b:Outfoxed|165333|Outfoxed ("Sister" Jane, #1)|Rita Mae Brown|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320491141s/165333.jpg|546598], & that probably would have helped with the characters. Perhaps that why the solution seemed pretty weakly done, but I don't think so. There weren't really enough clues to make it reader solvable. Well, it wasn't bad. I have the next book, [b:Full Cry|129249|Full Cry ("Sister" Jane, #3)|Rita Mae Brown|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320403526s/129249.jpg|788177], but am not in a rush to read it.

Brown does provide a glossary of hunting terms at the end. I didn't bother to read it, but the few terms I looked at seemed to be right on the money. ( )