Rating: 
Summary: What's going on with Rita Mae?
Review: Once upon a time, there was a woman who wrote for a living, and people were edified, entertained, infuriated, intrigued, or titillated. She'd had an interesting life in interesting times and with some interesting, dynamic, famous people. Then she grew older, "settled down", became extremely domestic in the countryside, and let her writing get so sloppy and slapdash it would embarrass an 8th grader-a bright 8th grader.
I, too, am a horse person; I own, ride, have taken part in the hunt(although out here in CA it's coyotes, not foxes-and we usually catch nothing, thank God); in my review of "Outfoxed" I made a suggestion echoed by another reader here: Rita Mae should definitely write NON-fiction, sticking to what she knows and loves best: riding, hunting, dogs, Virginia country-elite living. Nothing wrong with that. But instead she has to pay the bills and feed the demands of her editors(who are, after all, in the publishing business to make money-the more, the better), and it's just so obvious from this effort that her heart isn't in it; the "characters" are paper-thin, and resultingly boring-even the animal ones. The "mystery"-well,I am the dimmest of mystery readers-usually way behind the solution, though I hate to admit it, in even a mediocre mystery-but in this book(and her other Sneaky Pies)it's so flimsily plotted that not only can you figure it out immediately-you couldn't care less! What a shame. There's such a thing as stringing one's talent and reputation along a bit too far. This is proof.
Rating:
Summary: Sadly, disappointing
Review: Others have written this book is disappointing because the book description and inside flap blurb don't match the story. This is the least of the novel's problems! I have to preface my review by stating that I'm horse owner, all-around animal lover, and have read all of Rita Mae's work. I'm a big fan.In the case of this novel, I am baffled that her editor didn't ask her to go back to the drawing board, and I wondered if a crazed fan stole an early rough draft of the book from her desk drawer and somehow got it published on the sly. More bothersome than the fact that foxhunting triva seems to eclipse the mystery storyline is the tendency for Brown to use the novel as vehicle for two things: her opinions on human nature, and a "how-to" manual for rural life. It just got so tedious! Lists of brands her characters prefer, how to fix a hole if a dog digs under the fence, how the Ford F350 Dually handles for everyday driving (she writes about those friggin' trucks in every novel. Enough, please!), how to interpret a foxhound pedigree--geeeeez.
The characters aren't interesting or fully developed, and this seems like unedited stream-of-consciousness rather than a well-crafted tale--which is what Brown usually produces. I'll continue to buy her work, and sure hope this one is the exception.
Rating:
Summary: Don't let authors narrate their own work!
Review: SLOPPY recording; I'm surprised, as Recorded Books usually does a good job. Brown is a bad choice to read her own book; her voice cracks and wavers like a 13 year-old pre-pubescent boy, she has some annoying pronounciations ('conner' for 'corner'), she stresses the wrong words in a sentence, and on at least 3 occasions, she repeats a sentence to correct her reading ('enveloped by a veal (pause) enveloped by a veil' being the most glaring example), which Recorded Books should have corrected in post-production. Perhaps the worst 'professional' reading I've yet heard. Story itself is so-so, but the recording flat out stinks.
Rating: 
Summary: whoops
Review: So who got fired at the publishers for making such a huge mistake with the book's blurb? I assume that shortly after she began writing Rita Mae Brown fell in love with her intended victim and decided to spare him. I fell for the character too and was very glad that she did. Apparently someone at the publishers didn't get the message and wrote up a blurb with the orginial plotline. Oh well. Now for the book itself. I love the character of Sister Arnold. I love the interplay between her and her pack and the flawed, maddening and fascinating souls in the hunt club but this was NOT the best book in the series. I'd say that honor belongs to Hotspur. I'm happy that Brown managed the trick of making black characters behave like humans and not stereotypes and I'm glad Sister found some love in her life, I'm even gladder that the I wasn't treated to a long love scene. I really didn't want a full blown description of how Janie Arnold gets her groove back but the relationship with her new love interest didn't seem natural. What was it about this man that made him more appealing that all the other men in Sister's life? I never saw it. Here's what I didn't like: The animals didn't get their due. All of their conversations and scenes were too short.
One major character who we've come to love to hate does not get his comeupance. I felt let down.
The victims weren't interesting. In Outfoxed, the victim is a fascinating individual who almost deserves what happens. In Hotspur you care passionately about Nola and Guy though they've been dead 20 years by the time the story gets going. In Full Cry I didn't care about the victims. They are just "off camera" throw away characters. It was as if Brown was in a hurry and just wanted to get the murder over with.
In both Hotspur and Outfoxed the killer is interesting and in Hotspur, sympathetic. In Full Cry the killer is drab. I was thrilled by Hotspur and Outfoxed so this half hearted effort was really a disappointment. I hope that Rita Mae Brown will do another Sister book. I want this series to get back on its feet.
Rating: 
Summary: Very poor editing on the audio edition
Review: This was the first audio version of the author's work I have heard. If this is a sample of the quality of editing I will steer clear of the others. Although I found the author's voice unappealing, even worse was the swallowing sounds she made when reading her novel. The editing was so poorly done that you could hear pages being turned. When she made a mistake in her reading she began the sentence over again and the mistake was not edited out. Either this was a very low budget project or quality control forgot to check this one.
I have enjoyed her books in the past but next time I'll check to see who is reading it before I pluck it from the shelf.
As noted in the other reviews, the book jacket's description is not actually what happened in the book. Perhaps it was written for another book or another version of this book that never got to the publisher.
Rating:
Summary: Waste of my time
Review: Usually, I love Rita Mae Brown's work--especially the Mrs. Murphy series. I recently got into the Jane Arnold series, and was very excited to read this book. However, within the first 50 pages, my excitement vanished and was replaced with bewilderment. First off, unless I fell asleep for a while, the murder of "Sam Lorillard, former shining star and Harvard Law School alum, [who is found] ... dead of a stab wound on a baggage cart at the old train station..." never takes place. Sam is still alive and well by the end of the book. Aside from this glaringly obvious mistake, I found myself wading through page after page of what very well may be Brown's personal pontifications on life, drugs, the state of youth, and illiteracy, all thinly disguised as her characters' opinions during tedious conversations. I did enjoy the many hunting scenes in this novel. Although heavy on details only a foxhunter would love, Brown does do a fair job of relating the "thrill of the chase" to her readers. It remains to be seen whether I will bother reading her next Jane Arnold attempt.
Rating: 
Summary: An Excellent Read
Review: With _Full Cry_ Ms Brown has recaptured the feel and intrigue of her first in the series, _Outfoxed_.
However, I will have to say that whomever wrote the editorial review/back flap copy didn't bother to read the book. Sam Lorrilard isn't the murder victim or a Harvard allum, He's a dried out alcaholic horse trainer. The victim isn't stabbed, he's poisoned. Sister doesn't announce her new Joint Master at the New Year's Hunt, it's done at the regular meeting, and nothing is said at all about dishonest goings on in another hunt club. It has nothing to do with the real plot of the book which is about 3 drunks being murdered, and Sister finding herself a beau in the handsom Grey Lorrilard, a black tax lawyer. An intriguing installment in the Jefferson Hunt soap opera. If you like _Outfoxed_ and _Hotspur_ you will enjoy _Full Cry_.
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