The Hunt Ball

"A rich, atmospheric murder mystery . . . rife with love, scandal . . . redemption, greed and nobility," raved the San Jose Mercury News about Outfoxed, Rita Mae Brown's first foxhunting masterpiece. In The Hunt Ball, the latest novel in this popular series, all the ingredients Brown's readers love are abundantly present: richness of character and landscape, the thrill of the hunt, and the chill of violence.The trouble begins at Custis Hall, an exclusive girls' school in Virginia that has gloried in its good name for nearly two hundred years. At first, the outcry is a mere tempest in a silver teapot--a small group of students protesting the school's exhibit of antique household objects crafted by slaves--and headmistress Charlotte Norton quells the ruckus easily. But when one of the two hanging corpses ornamenting the students' Halloween dance turns out to be real--the body of the school's talented fund-raiser, in fact--Charlotte and the entire community are stunned. Everyone liked Al Perez, or so it seemed, yet his murder was particularly unpleasant. Even "Sister" Jane Arnold, master of the Jefferson Hunt Club, beloved by man and beast, is at a loss, although she knows better than anyone where the bodies are buried in this community of land-grant families and new-money settlers.