The tabby cat Mrs Murphy continues to watch over her lady owner Harry Haristeen in TALL TAIL the latest in the 'Mrs Murphy' series by Rita Mae Brown, also credited to her cat Sneaky Pie Brown. That must be an elderly cat by now; I've been reading these books for years. The Virginia setting is lovely as ever with plenty of room on the farm for the tabby, her longhair friend Pewter, corgi Tee Tucker and horses. A sudden storm causes a lot of damage, and the death of a woman found by Harry at the wheel of her car goes almost unremarked in the chaos.

We see socialising of present day and back in 1874. Life was quite different then in the South with carriages, servants and without civil rights for all. A family living on a big estate and growing tobacco talk of little but the blooded horses they breed. Abuses of servant girls go on but are not mentioned in polite company.

Barbara Leader, the casualty in the car, turns out to have died from a poison which mimics a heart attack. Harry is naturally shocked that a local lady could have been killed in this callous fashion. She starts to make enquiries. Like many small farmers in books I'm reading these days, Harry and her husband Fair are running an organic farm, and Harry wants a good website to help them sell their sunflowers and hay. As she drives around the Crozet district ostensibly on this errand, dog and cats in her car, Harry asks about Barbara; whether she had money or relationship issues, who knew her and would have access to thallium chloride. Because the episode is set in 2016 the background includes the ongoing political candidates speaking on TV, with local interest included.

History is all around the people in Virginia, their land and society are steeped in it, and Harry eventually learns what the reader has suspected all along, that the shadows of history lie long on the land. Rita Mae Brown could be accused of telling a tall tale with this book, which is no doubt why she has titled it TALL TAIL instead. The brave cats and dog will as ever endear themselves to animal- loving readers while those folks who enjoy a mystery with both contemporary and historical aspects will have a good time. Get ready for some genuine Southern hospitality.

Book Summary

In this fast-paced mystery by Rita Mae Brown and her feline co-author Sneaky Pie Brown, Mary Minor “Harry” Haristeen and her animal friends seek to solve a whodunit rooted in eighteenth-century Virginia—uncovering a shocking secret that refuses to stay buried.
 
TALL TAIL
 
At any moment a perfect summer day in Crozet, Virginia—nestled within the Blue Ridge Mountains—might turn stormy and tempestuous, as Harry knows too well when a squall suddenly sweeps in. In a blink, Harry’s pickup nearly collides with a careening red car that then swerves into a ditch. Harry recognizes the dead driver slumped over the vehicle’s steering wheel: Barbara Leader was nurse and confidante to former Virginia governor Sam Holloway.
 
Though Barbara’s death is ruled a heart attack, dissenting opinions abound. After all, she was the picture of health, which gives Harry and her four-legged companions pause. A baffling break-in at a local business leads Harry to further suspect that a person with malevolent intent lurks just out of sight: Something evil is afoot.
 
As it happens, Barbara died in the shadow of the local cemetery’s statue of the Avenging Angel. Just below that imposing funereal monument lie the remains of one Francisco Selisse, brutally murdered in 1784. Harry’s present-day sleuthing draws her back to Virginia’s slave-holding past and the hunt for Selisse’s killer. Now it’s up to Harry and her furry detectives—Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tee Tucker—to expose the bitter truth, even if it means staring into the unforgiving eyes of history and cornering a callous killer poised to pounce.