Murder, She Meowed (Mrs. Murphy Series #5)

by Rita Mae Brown, Wendy Wray (Illustrator), Sneaky Pie Brown

Overview

The annual steeplechase races at Montpelier, once the home of James and Dolley Madison, are the high point in the social calendar of the horse-mad Virginians of cozy Crozet. The race meet offers a cracking good time with old friends and a chance to get even—on the racecourse—with old enemies. Postmistress Mary Minor "Harry" Haristeen will be in the thick of the action on this day of high spirits and fierce competition. But the glorious thoroughbreds and the pinks and greens and purples worn by the riders do not blind Harry to the dangerous undercurrents that start to surface. There's sure to be some emotional fireworks at Montpelier. Still, no one expects the day to end in tragedy.

Found dead in the main barn is one of the day's riders, a knife plunged through the jockey's heart. The only clue is a playing card, the Queen of Clubs, impaled over the fatal wound. Within the wealthy, tight-knit world of horse owners, trainers, and jockeys, the victim had both admirers and enemies.

Was the murderer's motive greed, drugs—a pervasive evil in the race world—or sexual rivalry? Luckily for Crozet's humans, the tiger cat Mrs. Murphy is right at home in the stable yard...and on the trail of the shocking truth. But will Harry catch on in time to stop a killer grown bloodthirsty with success?

In Murder, She Meowed Sneaky Pie Brown and her co-author, Rita Mae Brown, have penned another clever and sassy mystery that probes the depths of human depravity and the heights of feline genius.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780553572377
Publisher:	Random House Publishing Group
Publication date:	11/28/1997
Series:	Mrs. Murphy Series , #5
Edition description:	Reissue
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	186,981
Product dimensions:	6.96(w) x 10.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Rita Mae Brown is the bestselling author of several books. An Emmy-nominated screenwriter and a poet, she lives in Afton, Virginia.

Sneaky Pie Brown, a tiger cat born somewhere in Albemarle County, Virginia, was discovered by Rita Mae Brown at her local SPCA. They have collaborated on fourteen previous Mrs. Murphy mysteries: Sour Puss; Wish You Were Here; Rest in Pieces; Murder at Monticello; Pay Dirt; Murder, She Meowed; Murder on the Prowl; Cat on the Scent; Pawing Through the Past; Claws and Effect; Catch as Cat Can; The Tail of the Tip-Off; Whisker of Evil; and Cat’s Eyewitness, in addition to Sneaky Pie’s Cookbook for Mystery Lovers.

Read an Excerpt

The entrance to Montpelier, once the home of James and Dolley Madison, is marked by two ivy-covered pillars. An eagle, wings outstretched, perches atop each pillar. This first Saturday in November, Mary Minor Haristeen—"Harry"—drove through the elegant, understated entrance as she had done for thirty-four years. Her parents had brought her to Montpelier's 2,700 acres in the first year of her life, and she had not missed a race meet since. Like Thanksgiving, her birthday, Christmas, and Easter, the steeplechase races held at the Madisons' estate four miles west of Orange, Virginia, marked her life. A touchstone.

As she rolled past the pillars, she glanced at the eagles but gave them little thought. The eagle is a raptor, a bird of prey, capturing its victims in sharp talons, swooping out of the air with deadly accuracy. Nature divides into victor and victim. Humankind attempts to soften such clarity. It's not that humans don't recognize that there are victors and victims in life, but that they prefer to cast their experiences in such terms as good or evil, not feaster and feast. However she chose to look at it, Harry would remember this crisp, azure day, and what would return to her mind would be the eagles...how she had driven past those sentinels so many times yet missed their significance.

One thing was for sure—neither she nor any of the fifteen thousand spectators would ever forget this particular Montpelier meet.

Mrs. Miranda Hogendobber, Harry's older friend and partner at work, rode with her in Harry's battered pickup truck, of slightly younger vintage than Mrs. Hogendobber's ancient Ford Falcon. Since Harry had promised Arthur Tetrick, the race director, that she'd be a fence judge, she needed to arrive early.

They passed through the gates, clambering onto the bridge arching over the Southern Railroad tracks and through the spate of hardwoods, thence emerging onto the emerald expanse of the racecourse circling the 100-acre center field. Brush and timber jumps dotted the track bound by white rails that determined the width of the difficult course. On her right, raised above the road, was the dirt flat track, which the late Mrs. Marion duPont Scott had built in 1929 to exercise her Thoroughbreds. Currently rented, the track remained in use and, along with the estate, had passed to the National Historic Trust upon Mrs. Scott's death in the fall of 1983.

Straight ahead through more pillared gates loomed Montpelier itself, a peach-colored house shining like a chunk of soft sunrise that had fallen from the heavens to lodge in the foothills of the Southwest Range of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Harry thought to herself that Montpelier, built while America labored under the punitive taxes of King George III, was a kind of sunrise, a peep over the horizon of a new political force, a nation made up of people from everywhere united by a vision of democracy. That the vision had darkened or become distorted didn't lessen the glory of its birth, and Harry, not an especially political person, believed passionately that Americans had to hold on to the concepts of their forefathers and foremothers.

One such concept was enjoying a cracking good time. James and Dolley Madison adored a good horse race and agreed that the supreme horseman of their time had been George Washington. Even before James was born in 1752, the colonists wagered on, argued over, and loved fine horses. Virginians, mindful of their history, continued the pastime.

Tee Tucker, Harry's corgi, sat in her lap staring out the window. She, too, loved horses, but she was especially thrilled today because her best friend and fiercest competitor, Mrs. Murphy, a tiger cat of formidable intelligence, was forced to stay home. Mrs. Murphy had screeched "dirty pool" at the top of her kitty lungs, but it had done no good because Harry had told her the crowd would upset her and she'd either run into the truck and pout or, worse, make the rounds of everyone's tailgates. Murphy had no control when it came to fresh roasted chicken, and there'd be plenty of that today. Truth be told, Tucker had no self-control either when it came to savoring meat dishes, but she couldn't jump up into the food the way the cat could.

Oh, the savage pleasure of pressing her wet, cold nose to the window as the truck pulled out of the farm's driveway and watching Mrs. Murphy standing on her hind legs at the kitchen window. Tucker was certain that when they returned early in the evening Murphy would have shredded the fringes on the old couch, torn the curtains, and chewed the phone cord, for starters. Then the cat would be in even more trouble while Tucker, the usual scapegoat, would polish her halo. If she'd had a tail, she'd wag it, she was so happy. Instead she wiggled.

Table of Contents

Editorial Reviews

"A tricky whodunit...as feline collaborators go, you couldn't ask for better than Sneaky Pie Brown."—The New York Times Book Review

"The Browns once again blend plot, character and atmosphere with plenty of wit and charm to create a delightful entertainment."—Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

It's a day at the races for intrepid gray tiger cat Mrs. Murphy and her friends in the latest collaboration between Brown and feline coauthor Sneaky Pie (Pay Dirt). Competition is fierce at the annual steeplechase at Montpelier, the historic Virginia home of James and Dolley Madison. When a dagger in the heart takes the life of jockey Nigel Danforth, young heiress and horse trainer Adelia Valiant is distraught. Her brother and her guardian, however, can't hide their relief at the death of the man they regarded as a gold digger and who, it turns out, was not who he said he was. As the official investigation focuses on the victim's cocaine habit and his ties to a pair of drug-dealing trainers, another coked-up jockey is murdered and the dealers disappear. Mrs. Murphy and her pals, fat cat Pewter and corgi Tee Tucker, cut to the chase, believing that the recent murders are tied to the disappearance of Addie's mother five years earlier. After learning from a racehorse that the second jockey died after trying to dig up the horse's stall, Mrs. Murphy and friends strike a bargain with a sassy bunch of barn mice: a moratorium on mousing in exchange for information. But getting that information to Mrs. Murphy's owner, Crozet, Va., postmistress "Harry" Haristeen, and the other humans proves difficult-people simply don't listen. The animals spring into action to save Harry and bring the miscreant to justice as the Browns once again blend plot, character and atmosphere with plenty of wit and charm to create a delightful entertainment. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Brown continues her cozy mystery series (e.g., Pay Dirt, LJ 10/15/95) wherein both human and feline detectives investigate murder. Here, a jockey is done in at the Montpelier steeplechase, and the four-legged Mrs. Murphy sneaks into the stable to ferret out the truth.

Library Journal

YAThe murder of a jockey at a fashionable Virginia thoroughbred horse race sets experienced animal sleuths Mrs. Murphy (a cat) and Tucker (a dog) into motion as this delightful series continues. Their owner, Harry, who is the postmistress, and the county sheriffs are also hard at work on the case, but it is this pair of detectives, assisted by their animal friends, who first learn that a disappearance years before was actually a murder. Eventually everyone sees the links and motives between the murders and the villain is apprehended. This fast moving, fun novel provides a good look at small town lifeeveryone knows everyone, or more correctly, thinks they know everyone. The clever writing displays the authors' keen insight into the relationships and potential dialogue between pets. A great choice for mystery lovers.Claudia Moore, W. T. Woodson High School, Fairfax, VA

School Library Journal