Skip to main content
PBS logo
 
 

Book Review of The Tell-Tale Horse (Jane Arnold, Bk 6)

The Tell-Tale Horse (Jane Arnold, Bk 6)
reviewed on + 1568 more book reviews


Another delightful romp with âSister' Jane Arnold, the Huntmaster of one of the finest hunt clubs in Virginia. This simmering kettle of tempers, grudges and emotional tangles involves more the oddities of the peculiar human animal, and less of the directness of the four-legged or feathered animal.
From the dust jacket: It's February, prime foxhunting season for the members of Virginia's Jefferson Hunt Club. The girls at Custis Hall are finishing their last semester before heading off to college, the entrepreneurially shrewd Crawford Howard is still smarting from January's breech in hound etiquette, and the Casanova Hunt Club is hosting their annual ball. New neighbors bring new friendships, and romance is in the air.
Then a shocking event alarms the community. A woman is found brutally murdered, stripped naked, and meticulously placed atop a horse statue outside a tack shop. The theft of a treasured foxhunting prize inside the store may be linked to the grisly scene, and everyone is on edge.
With few clues to go on, 'Sister' Jane Arnold, master of the Jefferson Hunt Club, uses her fine-tuned horse sense to try to solve the mystery of this 'Lady Godiva' murder. The septuagenarian still has a strong spring in her step and her wits about her, but that may not be enough. As Sister gets closer to the truth, she could become the killer's next victim.
But humans aren't the only ones equipped to sniff out the trail. The local foxes, horses, and hounds have their own theories on the whodunit. If only these peculiar people could just listen to them, they'd see that the killer might be right under their oblivious noses.