FOX TRACKS by Carolyn Files
Well known for her Sneaky Pie Brown mysteries, Ms. Brown does an excellent job of capturing foxhunting at its best in the state of Virginia. Her most recent book, “Fox Tracks,” published in 2012, follows “Sister” Jane Arnold and her fox hunting friends from the streets of Manhattan to Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains. The book opens with the Masters’ Ball at the Pierre Hotel in Manhattan. The reader meets fox hunting characters dressed to the hilt, setting up relationships betwixt and between them. During the ball Sister and friend Tootie head for a nearby tobacco shop owned by Adolfo Galdos. High end tobacco products and jeweled cigarette cases and lighters delight their fancies. The women make their purchases, return to the ball and shortly thereafter learn that Adolfo has been murdered. The first of several murders related to Cuban run tobacco businesses. Descriptions of fox hunts, wonderful details of the geography of the farms hunted on, the way the hounds and their lineage are worked into the book indicate Ms. Brown’s knowledge of the hunt. Horses’ bloodlines are easily worked into the story to indicate whether they are Thoroughbreds, Warmbloods, Quarter Horse crosses. The reader gets to know these characters and pulls for them as foibles and strong points unfold in each chapter. The killer of the businessmen is not someone that would be suspected. Ms. Brown teaches the finer points of fox hunting as she entertains and does so easily. And it IS easy for her since she is the master of foxhounds at Oak Ridge Hunt Club and is one of the directors of Virginia Hunt Week. You can visit her website at www.ritamaebrown.com.
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