BOOKED Solid

The dynamic duo of Rita Mae Brown and her feline collaborator, Sneaky Pie Brown, are at it again. In this, their 12th book (13th if you count Sneaky Pie’s Cookbook for Mystery Lovers) the duo returns us to Crozet, Virginia, the home of Postmistress Mary "Harry" Haristeen and her quadruped partners-in-crime-solving, fearless corgi Tee Tucker, and frisky felines Mrs. Murphy and Pewter. Crozet may be pictured as a charming small town, oozing with southern charm and populated with good neighborly folks, but for such an idyllic place, there a whole lot of murderin’ goin’ on!

While this book is billed as a Mrs. Murphy Mystery (as are all of Sneaky Pie’s), its largest appeal will be to fans of the genre and animal lovers of all stripes. If you’re a true mystery lover you’ll probably be happier curling up with a Dan Brown or Patricia Cornwell novel. There are scads of animals to love. And they all talk. Cross species and territorial rights don’t slow them down a bit. There’s Tootsie Roll-loving Simon the possum, Flatface the owl, an unnamed blue jay, and vixen (fox variety) all who jabber away at each other throughout the book.

Harry and her sidekicks are out taking a walk on a balmy summer morning when they stumble across the body of Barry Monteith as he lays dying. His throat has been ripped out and it is initially assumed that he was attacked by an animal. There are no immediate other signs on or near the body, and a subsequent autopsy reveals that Barry had been infected with rabies several weeks before he died. Searching for clues near where the body was found, Harry finds a small gold school ring with distinctive markings and a Latin inscription. It’s discovered that the ring belongs to Mary Pat Reines who has been missing, along with her prized thoroughbred, Ziggy Flame, since 1974,

Barry Monteith was a horse breeder in partnership with Sugar Thierry. The plot thickens when a few weeks later Sugar dies a mysterious death. Mysterious until Harry describes his symptoms just before he died. Another diagnosed death by rabies throws the town into an uproar and attracts the attention of the media, setting off a frenzy of speculation about the infections and how far they may spread. The news that the deaths were caused by the strain of rabies, found in silver-haired bats, does little to calm the panic gripping many of the townspeople intent on shooting dogs, cats and any other animal that might fall under suspicion.

There’s an awful lot to be learned about rabies in this book, maybe even more than the average person wants to know. And, there’s even more information about thoroughbred horses, those bred for the track, steeplechase, and fox hunting. While some of it is mildly interesting, it does get a little tedious to repeatedly have horse lineage listed especially when the majority of it does nothing to move the plot forward. Rita Mae’s love of horses is quite obvious, but why saddle a reader with so much detail?

The book does have a very small lesbian subplot. Alicia Palmer, a former resident of Crozet who left in the seventies and took Hollywood by storm returns to the estate left to her by Mary Pat Raines. The two were lovers for three years. Alicia was under suspicion when Mary Pat first disappeared, because she inherited so much from her. Thirty plus years later that cloud returns with new facts about Mary Pat’s disappearance that links to the new murders.