“Sister” Jane Arnold features in another splendid foxhunting story, set in a land where foxes are tolerated and not harmed. From November to December 2023, we discover crimes are ongoing – but TIME WILL TELL if they can be stopped.
Set in Virginia’s wooded, grazed and cropped mountains, the adventure covers a lot of territory. Two adjacent Hunt Clubs team up to provide sport and make friends. Early in the tale, while herding two large cattle back to a field they escaped from earlier, Sister stumbles upon a $42,000 Rolex watch by the roadside. Seems the rural, partially paved roads and farm tracks are being used for unexpected purposes. Not long after, a trail picked up by hounds ends with a body. The chatty hounds are as surprised as the riders.
Meanwhile, a fine old house has been bought by an enterprise that provides women with work. Veronica and her sister Sheila Sherwood have an established property business. Restoring the premises will take a few years, after which it will be for sale. Sister and her hunt officials start to wonder if they could buy the land, so it would not be declared off-limits for hunting. Even deer shooting is too risky for a hunt field to cross.
The area is steeped in history, as we are reminded by such land names as the field of buttons, so-called due to a tragic battle. Modern ideas and characters populate the narrative, such as a female fire safety officer. While we don’t see much detail of the criminal investigation, the police mention DNA testing. Strange, then, to see the archaic sport of foxhunting carried on a few times a week.
If you know hunting, you’ll love this, but if you don’t know anything about it, there may be too much detail and terminology. British hunting – now legally drag-hunting only - used to aim at killing the fox, which was raiding chicken coops. There don’t seem to be any chickens in Virginia, is all I can say. People are content to have families of red and grey foxes on the land, which keep down rodents, and which end the chase safely in a deep dug den called an earth. No animals were harmed during the story, but I can’t say the same about people. While in some earlier books of the Sister Jane series, the stakes are personal, TIME WILL TELL features strangers to the main group falling foul of persons unknown. Rita Mae Brown updates her stories to feel more like modern life, where crime originates in news stories and spreads to quieter areas.
Between organizing a joint session with her friends at Bull Run Hunt, leading her own Jefferson Hunt Club’s fox hunting season, and looking after her beloved hounds and horses, “Sister” Jane Arnold is as busy as can be. She and her friend Tootie Harris are helping to lure home hunt club member Cindy Chandler’s two escaped cows, Clytemnestra and Orestes, when they discover an expensive watch carelessly abandoned on an overgrown path. The last thing Sister needs is another mystery to solve, but when one falls into her lap, she can’t help but get involved.
Days later, a young man is murdered, one with seemingly no connection to the pricey jewelry or a life of crime. His mother is distraught, and Sister vows to find the murderer. But when hounds on the hunt discover a truck covered in blood – with no body in sight – she quickly realizes she’s in over her head with a cunning and clever adversary. Can she find the link and stop the murderer before they strike again? Only time will tell.
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