Rating: 
Summary: Saturation is not always enjoyable.
Review: While I love Rita Mae Brown's ability to co-mingle the animal and human experience, I found her detailing of the incredible complexity of the fox hunting set to be more information than I need to read a mystery. I love Jane "Sister" Arnold, the 71 year-old Master of the Hunt and her friends/hounds/horses, but the details in this book would appeal to only the most dedicated hunt fan. I did learn one good thing, however. Americans only hunt the fox to its den, not like their brutal British cousins who hunt to the death. HOTSPUR's murder mystery takes a second -- or sometimes third -- seat to the machinations of the hunt season, the old money, the social climbers and all the ins and outs of hunt life. I suppose if you're a member of that set, these details and the constant fretting over your horse, your wardrobe and your standing in your club would make for good reading. It just doesn't play in Peoria....or a small town in east Texas. I'll continue to read Rita Mae Brown and hope she realizes she's exhausted the hunt and it's time to move on to other prey.
Rating: 
Summary: Tally Ho
Review: An o.k. story if you can get past the talking birds and animals. Tough to be outfoxed by a fox! I thought this was the first book by Ms Brown I had read, but on checking my list of books read, I find "Riding Shotgun" which I don't recall one bit. I guess there were no talking animals in it. Guess not too much effort was put into solving the mystery at the time of Nola's disappearance cause everyone thought the 2 eloped. But had there been, it wouldn't have been difficult to uncover the culprit at that time and might have spared another person's life.
Long live the clever fox.
Rating:
Summary: Tally Ho
Review: An o.k. story if you can get past the talking birds and animals. Tough to be outfoxed by a fox! I thought this was the first book by Ms Brown I had read, but on checking my list of books read, I find "Riding Shotgun" which I don't recall one bit. I guess there were no talking animals in it. Guess not too much effort was put into solving the mystery at the time of Nola's disappearance cause everyone thought the 2 eloped. But had there been, it wouldn't have been difficult to uncover the culprit at that time and might have spared another person's life.
Long live the clever fox.
Rating: 
Summary: enjoyable, but not quite what I was expecting...
Review: Fortunately for me, I'd borrowed "Hotspur" from the library. The trouble was not that the book was poorly written or that it was terribly uninteresting and banal. The trouble was that I was expecting a mystery novel along the lines of Rita Mae Brown's "Wish You Were Here" & "Rest in Pieces;" the trouble was that the mystery plot kept getting sidelined by the ruminations of the animals (foxes, horses, owls, etc) and the politics of the Jefferson Hunt club. Another problem was that I couldn't for the life of me figure out how the title fitted into the novel. Indications seem to suggest that one of the characters had a Hotspur-like personality, except that I couldn't quite see it. But perhaps that fault lies with me. "Hotspur" centers on the murder of Nola Bancroft. Nola, was the beautiful and capricious younger daughter of the well heeled Bancrofts, Edward and Tedi. And about twenty-one years ago, she disappeared. Since she was dating the sheriff's dashing son, Guy, and her parents openly disapproved of that relationship, everyone assumed when the couple suddenly disappeared that Nola and Guy had eloped. But as the years passed and nothing was heard of the pair, local gossip also included the speculation that Guy had murdered Nola in a fit of anger and left town in order to avoid arrest. The recent discovery of Nola's body now bolsters the latter theory. But "Sister" Jane Arnold, Master of the Jefferson Hunt Club doesn't believe that Guy murdered Nola, and she's determined to discover what really happened even if it means reopening old wounds and stirring things up -- even a murderer's ire... While I rather enjoyed Brown's descriptions of the Virginian countryside, the ins and outs of what goes on in a hunt club, and her character-descriptions of both the animals and humans (and what makes certain individuals tick), I still felt that a lot could have been left out since "Hotspur" was supposed to be (primarily) a murder mystery novel. For example, Nola's body is discovered at the end of chapter 1, and yet it is not until somewhere around chapter 15 that Brown delves into the mystery subplot again. And since I had checked out the book on the strength that it was supposed to be a mystery novel, this really left me feeling a little frustrated. "Hotspur" is not a bad read. If you enjoy books about small towns, with well developed characters, and bits about nature and animals and our (human) relationship with animals (and theirs with us), and don't really mind that the mystery subplot takes a long while to get underway, than you will probably not be disappointed with "Hotspur." But be advised, Brown does take a while to get into the mystery of who murdered Nola and why.
Rating:
Summary: I'm so glad I found this book
Review: I adored this book. It took me away to another world. It is full of violence, passion, lust, envy, anger, love and grace. The folks in the Jefferson County Hunt Club are all so complex and each one has his or her own fully fleshed out backstory and then there are the animals: Dragon the arrogant hound, Inky the black fox, wise Aunt Netty the red fox, Athena the fearless horned owl and Raleigh the devoted Doberman. The creatures in Rita Mae Browns books all have intense lives and opinions of their own and I cared about them as much if not more than the people. Some reviewers complained that the book gets too deeply into the day to day life of the hunt but that IS what the book is about :Sister Jane's life with murder thrown in to complicate things. I loved Sister. She's a tough old girl with a mind as sharp as Jane Marple. My only regret with this entire series is that Sister is 71. I hope this series goes on for quite a while and at this rate Sister may have to live to be over 100 like Poirot did. If you want a book that offers a complete escape from the ordinary and you want a book that takes its time to settle into the story then you'll like Hostspur.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing resolution
Review: I enjoy the animal's personification and dialogue in these books and while I'm not enamored of foxhunting, the information about it does make the book informative.
My complaint is that the resolution of the mystery resembles a CHiPs episode I saw in the late 70s. A re-enactment with actors playing the parts of people who've been dead for 2 centuries? It's rather unsatisfactory. I wonder if the author just got painted into a corner and could only conjure up this elaborate scheme to solve the mystery. I found it to be a disappointing way to end an otherwise enjoyable novel.
Rating: 
Summary: "MORE...PLEASE"
Review: I enjoyed this book, as I do all Rita Mae Brown's "Horsey" stories! I hope more are coming...fast !
Rating:
Summary: Hotspur Review
Review: I find myself disappointed with this book. I have thoroughly enjoyed the Sneaky Pie Brown books. But this, is it a story or a guide to foxhunting? I kept waiting for the story to get going and all I got was more explanations on fox hunting. This story for me fell flat
Rating:
Summary: Boring
Review: I found that this book got too bogged down in details that were not necessary to the story, especially what people should and shouldn't wear for foxhunting and the breeding of hunting dogs. I usually love the Sneaky Pie series, and thought I would try another by her. I was very disappointed. The characters were very likeable, especially Sister and Shaker. The mystery itself was developed as an "oh, by the way" during her account of the Wide World of Foxhunting. I also thought that if she was going to have dialogue from the animals, they should have at least played a part in solving the mystery.
Rating:
Summary: Tedious
Review: I have been a fan of Rita Mae Brown's for about 20 years and have read most of her books, and this was by far the most tedious. I like horses/horse people, have ridden in many disciplines and know the culture. That aspect may be interesting to people who know nothing about foxhunting, horses, etc., but I don't know that it adds much to the story, and if you don't care about such things, try another book. I think Ms. Brown should just write a book on foxhunting, as such, and get it out of her system. The story, presumably being the murder mystery, is ho-hum. I didn't care about the deceased - they were far less vivid than even the peripheral animal characters - and since there was no real investigation to follow, I found myself wondering why I kept reading. Oh yeah, builds character.
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