Reviews

Hunt with the Hounds by Mignon G. Eberhart

slferg's review

4.0

I rather like this author. Read her Susan Dare mystery book. This one is good, also. There is a murder trial, and the main witness for the defense swears she saw the killer in his car out in front of the house at the time the murder was committed, even tho the victim says he shot her and all the evidence points that way. The killer is cleared. He thinks she must be in love with him and keeps saying they're engaged, etc. which she denies. She finally convinces him she does not love him and has no intention of marrying him. Then strange accidents start to befall her. A shot barely misses her as she stands on the front porch. Someone apparently thinks she knows something about the killing. A good friend is in love with her and wants to marry her; she finally realizes she is in love with him - not the defendant (whom she never thought she was in love with, just flattered at his attention). He tries to help her solve the mystery, even though she is the next obvious suspect as murderer. A state policeman wants to arrest her immediately and arraign her for the murder, but the local sheriff (an old friend of the family) tries to stall him. Then she discovers the beloved doctor has been killed. Her brother has heard someone talking to him shortly before he is killed, but not loudly enough to recognize the voice of the killer. After several narrow escapes from death, and going over and over the evidence with friends who are just now admitting to some things they knew about the murdered woman [she was definitely NOT a nice person, although neither was her killer], certain things begin to fall into place.

bev_reads_mysteries's review

2.0

Hunt with the Hounds (1950) by Mignon G. Eberhart is meant to be an edge-of-the-seat romantic suspense story. It's set against the backdrop of the Virginia fox-hunting country (who knew fox-hunting was a thing anywhere but England). It opens with Jed Bailey on trial for his life--accused of murdering his wife in order to be with "the other woman." The other woman is apparently Sue Poore. Credence is given to this supposition when Sue provides the evidence that Jed couldn't have killed Ernestine Bailey...because he was with her, proclaiming his love and telling her that he planned to divorce Ernestine. And later--that she had seen him sitting in his car when the shot was fired.

Jed is duly acquitted, but it never occurs to Sue that the police will focus their sights on her as suspect number two. She (along with the faithful Fitz Wilson) spends the rest of the story trying to prove her innocence. The police have decided that if Jed didn't do it, then she must have--especially when she is present at the scene of a second killing. And not even a bullet that scars the wall beside her will convince them that she, too, is in danger from a murderer they would never suspect now.

Eberhart tries very hard to build up suspense and atmosphere in this one. But, for me, it just fell flat and doesn't represent her best work. I have to admit to a bit of bias here--I much prefer her stories with Nurse Sarah Keate and I tend to hold The Mystery of Hunting's End up as the stick by which I measure her mysteries. Hounds isn't even close in its abilities to mystify the reader. And Eberhart's usual fine description and dialogue seem to be missing here. There were sections where, quite honestly, I just didn't follow the conversations. Everybody has an off day here and there--Eberhart definitely spent a few on this particular outing.

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