Jane Arnold Books In Order

Publication Order of "Sister" Jane Books

The Jane Arnold series is a series of cozy mystery novels featuring Sister Jane Arnold as the central character. It is written by the famous American author Rita Mae Brown. There is a total of 9 novels in the series published between the years 2000 and 2014. In the novels of the series, Jane Arnold is depicted as a 70 year old woman and the Master of the Foxhunt and comes from the Commonwealth of Virginia. She is known as ‘Sister’ by her friends and colleagues and therefore, the series is also called as ‘The ‘Sister’ Jane Arnold’ series. Author Rita Mae Brown is an avid fox-hunter herself and has used all her life experiences in writing the novels of the series. As the series deals with fox-hunting, it is also referred to as the ‘Foxhunting Mysteries’. Rita began writing the novel in the year 2000 and since then, she has gone on to publish 8 more novels in the series. She is still working on the latest novel of the series and is about to release it very soon in the coming days.

The first novel of the Sister Jane Arnold series was published under the title ‘Outfoxed’. It was published by the Ballantine Books publishing house in the year 2000. The plot of the novel is set in the pristine world of fox-hunting in Virginia, which is filled with horses, foxes, hunters and hounds everywhere. They live together in a community with conflicting loyalties. The plot is full of the intricacy and thrills of the human-animal relationships and several unsavory secrets related to a murder. In the opening sequence of the plot of the novel, Jane Arnold in introduced as the Master of the Jefferson Hunt Club. Often called as Sister, she is considered to be the most revered resident of the Blue Ridge Mountain town of Virginia. The town follows a rigid code, which is taken care of by the citizens for their social conduct. This, along with the prominent traditions of the town are considered to be more valuable than money. As Sister is nearing her 70s, she is required to appoint a joint master, who can take care of the leadership smoothly after her death. The position is considered to be an honorable one and is expected to be coveted by any social climber like the Holy Grail.

One of the other characters of the novel, Fontaine Buruss seems to be the obvious candidate for the position of joint master as he is Virginian from his roots and also has a solid history in fox-hunting. But, his penchant for squandering and philandering money has caused him to earn a bad reputation. He is even involved in a tawdry scandal which is not known by Sister. Another possible candidate for the position is Crawford Howard, who is a Yankee from a small town. Sister knows that he has a lot of money and owns a first-class hunt club. The competition between the two men goes on flaring as they seem to stop at nothing to discredit one another. And after a short while, the whole town gets pulled into a rivalry which spirals out of control dangerously. The animals in the community seem to have strong opinions about the rivalry, but the right to maintain objectivity lies with Sister only. However, she too gets stunned when the opening day of the hunt ends up is a murder. The citizens begin to speculate about the one who was skilled and bold enough to commit a murder in the presences of everyone. They believe that the murderer can only be the one who knew the complex nature of the hunt as well as the territory from inside out. Sister suspects three people who fit the descriptions of a possible murderer and with the help of her clever hounds and foxes, she tries to lay a trap for catching the killer. The novel proved to be a colorful description of an intriguing world. The captivating cast of the Southerners and their animal counterparts seemed to be unforgettable to the readers. Author Rita Mae Brown was praised for surprising, delighting, and enchanting the readers with her masterful novel.

The second novel of the series was published by the Ballantine Books publishing house in the year 2002. It was titled ‘Hotspur’ and continued to feature ‘Sister’ Jane Arnold as the Master of the Jefferson Fox-hunting Club. Despite being in her seventies, her love for the club has not diminished. She is considered to be the most powerful woman in the town of Virginia, being the Master of her hunting club. She is very well capable of assessing the true merits of a horse of a man with the help of her uncanny skills. It can be understood from her personality that she cannot be duped easily. Meanwhile, the skeleton of a girl named Nola Bancroft is unearthed, which still has an exquisite sapphire ring on one of her fingers. With the discovery of the skeleton, a 21 year old mystery is brought to light once again in the town. Nola was believed to be a beautiful girl and belonged to a wealthy family. She had numerous male admirers in her life. She used to live in a world where the ability of a woman to ride was considered to be one of her valuable social graces and she was well versed with the ability.

Nola was considered to be the queen of the stable. Her weakness for men was known to everyone as she used to often get pulled towards the inappropriate men. One of them was the son of the sheriff named Guy Ramy. Even he could not help himself from wandering. It was more than 2 decades ago on the occasion of the ceremonial first day of the club when Guy and Nola had disappeared mysteriously. People began to speculate during that time that two might have eloped their families because of the disapproval of Nola’s family or Guy might have killed Nola due to jealousy and rage, and escaped. However, Sister never believed any of the theories and was of a different opinion. She believes that the older players are still in their places and that their feuds have not died with the passage of time. There was a possibility of the feud getting flared once again at any time after the discovery of Nola’s skeleton. The novel gives a detailed description about the rituals and manners of the Southern small town. The unique storytelling of author Rita Mae Brown helped the novel to intricate and compel an interesting murder mystery.