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. Aided and abetted by foxes and owls, cats and
hounds, Sister picks up a scent that leads her in a most
unwelcome direction: straight to the heart of the
foxhunting crowd. The chase is on, not only for foxes but
also for a deadly human predator.