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'Outfoxed' by Rita Mae Brown

Heroes are still animals in new Rita Mae Brown mystery

Sunday, January 16, 2000

By Pohla Smith, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

	Outfoxed By Rita Mae Brown Ballantine $24.00

Read no further if it stretches your imagination too much to envision animals thinking and communicating with one another.

Anthropomorphism is a huge part of Rita Mae Brown’s popular Mrs. Murphy series, and equally so with the new characters she introduces in her latest mystery.

This time the sleuth is Jane “Sister” Arnold, a sharp, spry, young-in-spirit widow approaching 70 who’s master of the Jefferson Hunt Club. She is surrounded by a bevy of smart animals, both wild and domesticated, who provide continual commentary on the action and the stupidity of most humans.

The animals are right. When Sister decides to appoint a joint-master who can step in when she no longer is able to ride, the humans prove to be both stupid and petty.

The top candidates couldn’t be more different: Fontaine Buruss, a native Virginian with great fox-hunting ability and Southern manners, but no morals, and Crawford Howard, a Yankee with no understanding of Southern gentility but a great deal of money he gladly would spend on the hunt club.

Everybody has an opinion on whom Sister should appoint, even the animals. But the matter becomes rather moot when Buruss is murdered on the first day of the hunt. Howard is a likely suspect, but there are plenty of others -- all members of the club -- who also had reason to want Buruss dead.

Sister deduces, though, by the positions they rode in the hunt, that only three people could have committed the murder, and she lays a trap to catch the criminal. The animals help out, for the murderer was mean-spirited enough to kill a beautiful red fox -- in America, fox hunters don’t kill foxes -- to trap Buruss.

The book is well-plotted, but it’s the characters that make it a page-turner. Animal lovers generally are gentle, good people, and, despite their human foibles, most of the people in “Outfoxed” are just that.

The animals are fun too. Sister lives with a wise-cracking cat and dog, Golly and Raleigh, who will remind all pet owners of their own furry responsibilities. But it is the hounds, the foxes, a kind old owl and a despicable crow who take the larger role in the denouement.

However, this is no fairy-tale mystery in which all the loose ends are tied up and everyone goes home happy and healthy. Unfortunately, good people and good animals also suffer. Lives are ruined and, like the beautiful slain fox, a special hound meets a violent death. In you do tend to believe in anthropomorphism, keep a couple of tissues handy.