Rating: 
Summary: Very disappointing to read
Review: I am a fan of Rita Mae Brown, but I was very confused when I read the inside cover and then read the book! Who was in charge of writing the inside cover summary. They need to be reassigned, as they did not read the book well, or new glasses. NO joke, there was a LARGE disconnect between the two. The story was a bit heavy with foxhunting and clothing. Please give me a story next time.
Rating: 
Summary: Not what I expected
Review: I am listening to the CD audio version of this book. I am very disappointed. The author is reading her book and she has made several mistakes, garbled words and begun over. I thought errors were edited out. I can hear the pages being turned as she reads and on occasion she seems to running out of breath. Didn't she take a break?, ever? I am on disc 7 and have heard more about foxes, hunting dogs and fox hunt detail than the average person would want to hear in their lifetime. This story needs more plot and less hunting detail.
Rating:
Summary: Not up to her usual snuff
Review: I didn't feel this book was up to the usual quality of Hotspur and Outfoxed. As someone else noted, it was just chit chat...nothing exciting and it took too long to get to the story which barely lasted one chapter. Also, the rodeo antics of Sister Jane at the end were a little unbelievable. I mean come on now...standing in her saddle and jumping onto another horse? I was disappointed in the book. A better read if you haven't read it yet, is Shotgun. I've read that one many times and still enjoy it. In fact, I would like a sequel to see how Pryor is doing. She was an interesting character and I really liked her. So, Rita...how 'bout it? Can we hear more about Pryor?
Rating: 
Summary: Good writer, not her best book...
Review: I don't mind if fictional authors occasionally spout some social or moral opinions in their books, usually through their protagonist. Almost all writers do it to some extent or another. But when the length of the book is dependent upon that soap-box preaching, and when the mystery takes such a back seat to that preaching that it is hard to remember what the plot is about, then the writer has gone too far. I enjoy Rita Mae Brown's books. I enjoy this particular series having to do with fox hunting in the U.S. because I suspect if I had been raised in Virginia, I'd be out on the horses too. I really enjoy the backgrounds and historial information that Brown gives in her books. And the anthromorphizing of the hounds, horses, and foxes does not bother me in the least. I've always suspected some animals are smarter then humans anyway...I know many dogs and horses who are nicer then most people.But...having said all that, Ms. Brown needs to decide whether she wants to sermonize or write a mystery. If she wants to break into nonfiction genre, go for it. But preaching is going to alienate her mystery choir (audience), and it tends to slow down the books and make the books less well-written. This is a decent book, by a decent author...but newbies to Rita Mae Brown should start with another of her older books, because this one left much to be desired. Karen Sadler
Rating:
Summary: What story?
Review: I enjoy reading Rita Mae Brown, but this one was a let down. Starting with the completely inaccurate description of the book (I'll say no more about the weak story) to the over emphasis on fox hunting, this book is just a thin story with alot of padding. Rita Mae, you really could do much better....
Rating: 
Summary: wonderful but the publisher better read the flap!!!!
Review: I would have loved this book if it were just about foxhunting, one of my passions, but of course Brown writes a great read (and I'm not a mystery fan at all). The misleading CIP flap does the publisher and book no credit though, since the plot is not as written! If only more people could live near the earth and nature as Brown's heroine (and there are some of us out there as well), the world would be a better place.
Rating:
Summary: misleading and incomplete
Review: I would not characterize this book a a murder mystery...for one thing, there was absolutely no mystery about it...and it was hard to get too worked up about the victims. As a horse person, I was enchanted by the decription of the hunting club...but the author assumes that the reader knows a lot more than she does. The dialog between the animals are amusing, but I had to wonder how the author knew this was what the animals were thinking. As a dog and horse owner, I have to say that I don't believe my dogs or horses think this way...they are pretty food-centric.
I am going to try the "outfoxed" book as from the reviews, it sounds like this would be the better choice.
Rating:
Summary: A self-righteous foxhunting how-to manual, NOT a novel
Review: Let me say first that I usually enjoy Ms. Brown's work, especially her series on Juts and Wheezie. I also liked Outfoxed and was diverted by Hotspur, so I was excited when Full Cry was published. WHAT a disappointment! There is barely a plot and the characters truly are no more than a list of names (there also are some serious editing errors; anyone else catch the mistaken reference to Fairy Thatcher?) And while I've enjoyed learning about foxhunting from her other novels, I'd guess that about 60% of this book is simply a description of the how-to details of the sport. Thirty-five percent is a self-righteous, complacent sermon about blaming the victim (for example, Ms. Brown seems to subscribe to the theory that all alcoholics have to do is quit bending their elbow). In fact, her tone reminds me of the resentful bitterness of a person who's just come out of a bad relationship.
I also found it interesting how she argues repeatedly that certain people are born irrevocably bad, yet simultaneously complains about society's ills. You can't have it both ways, Rita Mae; you can't bemoan social ills yet espouse the belief that the people creating those ills are unfixable.
The remaining 5% of the book is plot and character development. Ms. Brown needs to devote herself entirely either to being a MFH or a novelist, because at this point she obviously cannot successfully perform both roles.
Rating:
Summary: Who's Outfoxed This Time?
Review: Like many others, I am a great fan of Rita Mae Brown's Sneaky Pie books. The other two foxhunting books, while a bit too much boilerplate about the sport, were readable. But this is over the top. Too much about foxhunting. Too much frothy talk amongst the silly hunt crowd. No mystery, but one: how did the book description on the cover get into print? Or onto the Amazon site? It bears no relationship to the book, which one can often find true of cover art. I have sometimes found minor errors in book descriptions on the inside cover, but never anything like this. Here's a mystery I would like to see solved. How did this happen?
Rating: 
Summary: Fun book-despite misleading jacket blurb
Review: Maybe you have to be not only a mystery lover but a horse person as well, but I LOVE her books. Despite the totally misleading jacket blurb (Sam Lorillard not only doesn't die, he's not a harvard grad and Sister does not make her announcements at the New Years hunt, nor does the story have anything to do with another hunts practices-what is up with this? The publisher went with details from a much revised first draft???), Brown's stories based on the fictional Jefferson Hunt are engaging, fun and full of very likeable and believable characters. I hope this isn't her last in this series!
|
