FOX AND FURIOUS

Murder returns to hunt country.

Jane Arnold, better known as “Sister,” has been Master of Foxhounds in Northern Virginia for more than 30 years. In her 70s, she’s tough, resilient, and blessed with a wide circle of friends. Among them is wealthy Olivia Bradford, whose will splits everything between her two sons, Winston and Andrew. Andrew, who recently divorced his first wife, Georgia, to marry the stunning and much younger Solange, doesn’t get on with Winston. When Olivia dies suddenly, Andrew tells Winston that he must remove his beagle kennels, which are now on Andrew’s part of the estate, within a week. Most of the locals take Winston’s side, angering Andrew even more, since he’s now banned from hunting with the Bradford Beagles, and leading to a nasty physical altercation. Undeterred, Andrew still has the nerve to show up at fox hunts. When he’s found dead at one of them, Winston and Georgia are naturally prime suspects. A hysterical Solange takes a moment out from being generally hateful to accuse Winston. Only the influence of two old friends who work for her, the married couple Scott and Ann, keeps Solange semicoherent. Winston is eventually arrested, and Sister and her friends, who have long sheets of prior crime-solving experience, continue to hunt, adding this season’s killer to their list. Confusing the issue even further are several guns-drawn battles between rival deer hunters and dangerous moonshiners who have worked in the secluded Blue Ridge Mountains for hundreds of years.

A startling denouement caps this catalog of everything you need to know about the ancient sport of fox hunting.