Hiss of Death: A Mrs. Murphy Mystery

I love Rita Mae Brown, so I tolerate her tendency to have the characters launch into preachy monologues that rarely sound like the way people usually talk. I think her older novels are vastly superior to the mystery series, but I keep reading them. There are a few things in this book that were made me really not like this book.

First, the some of the segues were clunky.

Second - and I will admit I may be being a touch snobby about this - but the book included a medical doctor talking about men walking up on hotel room bathrooms in a tub filled with ice with a note that told them to call 911 and let the operator know someone had removed one of his kidneys. I can forgive my elderly aunt for her inability or unwillingness to check Snopes.com before sharing something on Facebook, and I recognize that Ms. Brown does not own a computer so she cannot. But I cannot forgive an editor for including this oft-debunked urban legend as if it were fact, even in a work of fiction.

My last complaint: we're told Harry figures out who the killer is just as the killer approaches the farm to take her out, but there's no indication of how she was able to put the pieces together. I went back and re-read a few sections involving that character, and I'm still at a loss. It would have been nice to know what her thought process was.

If this had been my first Rita Mae Brown book, it would have been the last I read. I'm going to go back and re-read "Bingo" to purge this mess from my short-term memory.

As a longtime fan of the Sneaky Pie Brown mysteries, this is a real disappointment. In the past, I read them to relax and "catch up" with the beloved main characters that RMB developed over the years and to enjoy the leisurely descriptions of farm life and social life in Virginia.

These were never literary masterpieces, but they did have a homey/folksy feel and they were good, quick reads that left you satisfied.

This time around, not only is there next to no interaction with old faves, but the "new" folks seem like complete strangers because there's little real character development. We can't really care about their deaths and there's no real sleuthing to solve the mysteries.

Instead, this time around, the author seems to be on a soapbox, and while I have read other books that incorporate an author's views on a wide variety of topics, they have rarely been so obvious and relentless.

Cancer is a main theme in this book and that alone does not make a book unappealing. But the author seems to have left behind her storytelling skills. There are ways to tell cancer stories and explore the affects, especially on people we care about as we have come to care about the main characters.

But this is not what we get here. It's not about using cancer as a storytelling device, but rather it seems to be some sort of "platform" for the author who keeps dropping facts and all sorts of opinions about medicine, contemporary healthcare, alternative treatments, etc. in the middle of the story. The book needed serious editing and rather than getting us to consider some of the information that is included, it just seemed like we were getting bullet points from someone who was trying to "educate" us about cancer.

Maybe I really found it so annoying and distracting because I spend a considerable amount of time in my "real" life involved in healthcare education and decisionmaking. In my downtime, I don't need, or want, to be "educated" especially via what had been simply entertaining fiction. (FYI: I've read many nonfiction and science books on cancer and they were often highly engaging and intriguing and well written. They were not pedantic. Heck, I've read blog entries about the same subject matter and POV as covered in the book that were far more interesting and compelling and engaging.)

An author gets to choose what they write about and I get that Rita Mae Brown may be bored with her series and has a need to say more. However, it might have been easier if the author took this particular subject matter and POV and created a new series or did a one-off nonfiction bit.

Even if you were a fan in the past, I would not recommend this entry even though it does take the main character into a whole new life path. (and oh, what a missed opportunity to really fully explore this with some depth, given this character's personality. So many things just begged for more insights. The main character goes through a major life crisis and there is hardly any real discussion or interaction with her closest friends. And very little is even shared in the support group either. I mean if you're going to go with cancer as the main theme, GO with it. Don't just do platitudes.)

Rita Mae, I miss reading a story that really involves the characters you developed so well that we do care about them and keeps the focus on them wile integrating a truly intriguing or at least engaging mystery. If you cant' find ways to keep the main characters we've come to love involved in a new mystery, maybe it's time to end this series.

I'm afraid that this series: The Mrs. Murphy Mysteries, has gone off the rails and may not come back to its days of glory. This is the latest in the series that I read, and while it is better than Cat of the Century, the sad tendency to turn these mysteries into political and social manifestos is a really bad sign. When I read a series of cozy mysteries, I look for three things: 1. Can I - and everyone else - solve this mystery using the clues given in the book? 2. Is the storyline believable? 3. Because of being part of a series, are the characters developing in their fictional lives?

This book manages to pass one of those three tests. The failure of the first test was marginal: The murderer was clear to me by the end of one third of the book, but I had no idea why they acted as they did. So from that point on, it was a matter of how soon that person would be identified. Not good, but not terrible either. As far as the second test, this was a total miss: the plot was not only totally unbelievable, but the way the story ended was beyond even a non-reasonable stretch. What happens when the murderer was caught out had the normal hallmarks of this series in that the cats and other critters help subdue the murderer who is invariably armed and chasing the heroine, but then it went into a wild, improbable, and fantastic (and not in a good sense) ending that was totally unbelievable.

As far as character development, there was some which ended up being both good and bad. On the good side, Harry does a breast cancer screening and a lump is found which proves to be cancerous. Of course, news like this affects her immensely and so most of the character development in this book is about how she deals with the process of finding out that the lump is cancerous and the treatment options available to her. The bad part of this is that this becomes the focus of the book to the exclusion of the mystery. As I wrote above, by the time the lump is discovered, I already figured out who was the culprit. The following 200 pages dealt with cancer for the most part and only every so often was another crumb of the mystery thrown out. While I agree that breast cancer and its effects on the people who get the diagnoses and their family members and friends are immense and important, I question the author's decision to deal with it inside of what is supposed to be a cozy mystery?

Another factor that had me downgrade this book to a two star rating is that the writing has lost some of its sparkle. Normally, I find it hard to put books like these down. This was certainly true of the earlier books in the series. With this one, I had no trouble putting it down and looking for other activities. I actually took this book on an airplane trip that was going to be many hours long in the hopes that it would distract me for a good chunk of the ride, but found myself putting it away after reading less than five or ten pages. That is a very bad sign. It is a sign of how boring this book is.

I decided not to give this book a rating lower than two stars as the mystery elements increase and the preachiness that was so exaggerated in the previous book has been somewhat muted. There is still a long ways to go and I can only hope that the next one will come back to what makes this series so much fun and leave the last two volumes as bad aberrations that do not repeat.

The health crisis Mary Minor "Harry" Haristeen touches a lot of people in real life. I lost family members, friends, and beloved pets to various cancers. Add this to a back drop of a person devoted to finding cures only to turn to murder for complex and self-aggrandizing reasons. I found the political ranting turned down to more of a concern to cure it. I think this is a better mystery than most readers give credit.

I once lived near Crozet, Virginia, and because of that I enjoyed reading Brown's mysteries. Even after they lost most of their charm, I continued to pick up the paperback edition when a new one came out. I missed the post office where Harry worked and the interaction with the people who lived in the small town, so near to Charlottesville and all of the history of the area. Unfortunately, the stories have degraded into introducing new characters and descriptions of how the area has changed.

Even more, however, Hiss of Death is an information dump on cancer, exercise, and Harry's old truck. There is no mystery here that's worth wondering about, no story of the characters Brown's readers had come to care about. It seems as if there are no more stories to be told, and if that is the case, perhaps Crozet's amateur detective, her cats, dog, and horses, and all of the residents should hang up their computers and go on about their business. The series had a good run, but it has deteriorated to an uninteresting and disappointing waste of time and $7.99. I wish it were not so, but I think this series is done.

I was looking forward to reading Hiss of Death, but when I started to read it - I'm sorry, I don't find reading about breast cancer entertaining. I didn't even bother to finish this one. The Mrs. Murphy series should have quit after Harry and Fair got remarried. With the exception of Santa Clawed and Purrfect Murder, none of the books (after Harry & Fair remarried)have been any good. When you stray from the original formula, it doesn't work. Even the dialogue was bad, and I only read a couple chapters. I just couldn't get into it. If any more Mrs. Murphy books come out, I won't even attempt to read them. I haven't been able to finish 3 out of the last 5 that have been written. VERY DISAPPOINTING. I'm glad I only checked this one out at the library and didn't waste my money buying it! IF it had been any good and entertaining, I would have gladly purchased it. (I have all of the rest of the Mrs. Murphy series, except the last 5 books. But I definitely WON'T be getting this one!)

These books have gradually become vehicles for the author's political and social rants. The mystery is secondary to the viewpoints expressed. The plot is thin, the characters are now flat, one dimensional with stilted unnatural dialogue, and a once engaging series is now hardly recognizable from its beginnings. There is a place to vent these issues, but a cozy mystery series isn't one of them. I hope the author will recapture the charm of the earlier books. I will try to read one more, but if the rants continue I'm done. It's not what I want from a light mystery novel.

Browns books are horrible!! They read like a committee starts with the "oprah" topic of the week in essay, regardless of accuracy, dumps in broken dialog, failed character creation, cats and dogs, with random murders! ugh!!!
also..
!!!! Write about what you Know !!!!
DC Electric cars cannot be hot-wired in ANY way that would fry someone as described! Only the direct motor leads carry large enough amperage to do huge harm and all car seats have 4-6 inches of foam between sitter and any metal! Gee Miss Eco Committee Brown,,,, you sure got propagandized here... bad electric cars .. good gas guzzlers (also a "topic of the week":at time this was written) especially if some one tries to fry you: gas is better!?!

I've tried three I'm done!

There was too much preaching and not enough involvement and interaction with the other characters (both animal and human)that I adore. The story line was very weak. Although I applaud Ms Brown for addressing the issue of Breast Cancer I felt it was done poorly and the rest of the story was weak and boring. I have enjoyed all of the other Mrs Murphy books but it was a struggle to get through this one. I also noticed that there was what I would term product endorsements which truly annoyed me. This book was absolutely not an enjoyable experience. I hope the next book in this series will be closer to the older books. The last book in the series before this one was OK but not great. I feel like I am losing a friend when a favored author stops putting out well written books. Please Rita Mae get back your magic! Comment | Permalink

In "Bingo" Rita Mae Brown has a character say, "Life is too important to be serious." It is a pity that in her past few books, and especially this one, Ms Brown forgot that. There is an interesting plot buried in between the character's dissertations on big government, big pharma, pollution, the government-industrial complex and others. Unfortunately the plot is not well explained and the motivation of the characters is left to inference.

For the most part the animals do not contribute to the solution of the mystery, they just lay around and make cute comments on how inept the humans are. Yes, they participate in the rescue of Harry from the "bad guy," but not in a credible way.

It is sad that Ms. Brown has gotten old and crotchety and serious. Life is too important to be spent reading this book.

Rita Mae Brown and her cat apparently have given up real mysteries in favor of political ranting, unfortunately. This latest effort is focused on the subject of the main character's sudden medical problem, but along the way there's an incidental murder or two and the obligatory dangerous ending. Ms. Brown, though, has indulged herself with unfavorable commentary on the health care industry, medical insurance, taxes, etc, to the point where the book is not enjoyable. It's too bad, since I really liked the Mrs Murphy books when she began writing them, before, I guess, she allowed herself to become tiresomely crotchety in her writing. I wouldn't recommend this book.

I really enjoyed the early stories about Harry, Tucker, Mrs. Murphy and Pewter. They included lots of charm with likeable and unlikeable characters presented against the backdrop of a well-told mystery in a beautiful little town. I looked forward to reading the series because the stories offered me an opportunity to escape. With this book, the series is reduced to a vehicle for Ms. Brown to expound her political and philosophical views in an of-course-I'm-right! manner. The "story" itself was mostly a sequential list of the clinical details of Harry's experience with breast cancer and recovery. Yet, from decisions about treatment to choices about exercise, each issue was presented with a judgmental, self-righteous spin, with one speech never separated from another by more than a page or two (and often stacked back-to-back). Whether or not I agree with Ms. Brown's views is not important. What *is* at issue is I paid for a book that was presented to be an appealing work of fiction. Instead, I was subjected to a tortured social commentary. I feel cheated.

Due to my disappointment with Ms. Brown's last book, I waited to read this one until my library had it. So glad I waited! If the author is bored with the characters she should stop writing about them. They made only cameo appearances anyway. Harry was (unfortunately) one-dimensional as was the plot. I agree with her concerns about breast cancer, but a rant on her opinions is sooo not appropriate in a fictional mystery with talking animals as main characters. I think that I am pretty much done with the books by Rita Mae Brown unless she gets off her soapbox and starts writing something that she doesn't use as a forum for a political or social issues rant!

I totally agree with the reviewer who said the story got short shrift because of all the rants.

Good grief.

I quit buying this author's books several years ago when she closed the post office and made several other ridiculous changes.

I found this one in the library and decided to try it - for free.

Could not get half way through it. No story. Just soapboxes - on and on and on and on.

Not entertainment at all.

Three years after reading the last Sneaky Pie mystery I decided I missed the little talking animals, and especially the wonderful illustrations, and decided to give the next one a go. This was a mistake. This series should have been hung out to dry five or six books ago. It is no longer anything but a vehicle for RMB's rants and raves about all she finds wrong with the world, except, that is, for her small corner of the world, i.e. the state of Virginia, which is exempt from any wrongdoing. Yes, Virginia is beautiful, but as a member of an illustrious and highly-regarded family which settled in the Shenandoah Valley in the mid-1700s, I can tell you that not all is sweet-smelling in the state of Virginia (with apologies to Will Shakespeare). Her ongoing subtle and not-so-subtle bashing of the north and northern states makes me wonder why she feels so inferior; we in the north do not spend any time at all thinking about how to denigrate the south. My recommendation: check this series out of the library if you feel you have to read it. Unfortunately, we librarians have to purchase it, if only because of her name recognition. I recommend the earlier titles to library patrons, but warn them away from the later ones.

Brown has an agenda in this book--or several. This is a book about breast cancer. Harry has it. And most of the book is devoted to discussion (lots of them) about breast cancer with doctors, support group people, etc. The mystery is desultory. And there are other agendas that Brown is espousing in the book (which I do support), so I'm not against them, but the whole book basically is a screed. If you want the mystery part, just skip past most of the pages until you find the victims, and finally the perp. If breast cancer or other kinds of cancer are an issue for you, this book will trigger a lot. Clearly Brown has written this book because cancer is in her family and friends (and she said so). But as a mystery it falls way short.

It's hard to believe Rita Mae Brown actually wrote this! The animals' only participation was a random comment and rides in the car. The mystary was lame and the regulars from other Sneaky Pie books were virtually non-existant. The book was very dissappointing. Certainly not up to Ms. Brown's usual calibar of writing. It seemed to be a more editorial than a fictional novel. I usually get on a waitlist for these books. I'll wait to see the reviews first now.

I have waited patiently for all of the books Rita Mae Brown has written... no more. this last one has just gone too far. I do agree with most of her rants personally, but they do not belong in a series that used to be a fun read.I am afraid she has gone the way of Lillian Jackson Braun.. stop while the series is still fun. I hate to see it end but there comes a time........

The 19th installment in this series, "Hiss of Death", is a variation in style & theme for this series that has at times been all over the place. This time around "Harry" faces a diagnosis of breast cancer & our crimes relate to nurses. We also explore a little bit of the horse fertilization industry as well. Brown does a better than average job with the human side of things as we see the fear of the cancer & the hope that treatment can bring. The animals themselves even show an extraordinary amount of love for their master who they are afraid of losing. The murders themselves are handled in typical fashion for this series although there's more human interaction with this than animal which while usually detracting from things in this case doesn't due to the strength of the actual story itself. Easily one of the better entries in this series.

Oh, dear, after being a forever friend of Sneaky Pie and Rita Mae (have read the entire series 4 (yes, 4!) times, the last 2 "tails" have been major disappointments. Cat of the Century and Hiss of Death just didn't make it -- too political in every way with too much of a message. No charming escapism, just political 'stuff.' The wonderful friends of all the former books aren't here any longer and it's very sad for us very loyal purrfect fans. Perhaps if Rita Mae wants to write these books, she could use another format and leave out Mrs. Murphy and her wonderful friends. Please...

I like most reviewers have loved this series, but this book was terrible. It did not stand up to the quality of past books. Unfortunately, I find this to be the case with most serial books that are so very very good in the beginning. It gains enormous popularity, the author ends up grasping to continue and the books fall short. I only finished this book because I had paid for it. My recommendation is to not pay for this book, even a dollar at HALF PRICE BOOKS.

I have enjoyed reading all the other ones in this series, but I got bored with this one. I found only 4 of the chapters about the mystery and the rest were about cancer. I kept reading hoping that it would get better, but it didn't.

Where's the fun? Where are the animals? So disappointed in this book - and the last 3 or 4, too. I always enjoyed these books because they were light-hearted and the cats/dog were entertaining. If you want to read really good mysteries with talking, thinking cats, check out Shirley Rousseau Murphy's Joe Grey Mysteries - they're everything that Brown's stories aren't!!

This book falls far short of earlier books by Rita Mae Brown. First, it is full of long political diatribes, treatises on cancer and product placement. Second, you figure out "who done it" early in the book. Most of the characters talk like a textbook. Plus, you never really see how cancer affected the life of the heroine. Thankfully, I checked it out from the library so the only thing I lost was time.

In Crozet, Virginia, as she prepares to sell her first grapes, Mary Minor "Harry" Haristeen struggles with stage one breast cancer, but refuses to let the deadly disease prevent her from living. Thus with her husband Fair's encouragement the fortyish Harry signs up to participate in a 5K Run for Breast Cancer Awareness.

However, before the race, Harry and her pets (felines Mrs. Murphy and Pewter, and incorrigible corgi Tee Tucker) find the corpse of popular Central Virginia Medical Complex operating room nurse Paula Benton. Harry met the OR nurse during one of her recent hospital stays and respected the woman who was a key organizer of the race. Paula apparently died of anaphylactic shock caused by a hornet's sting. However, Harry wonders if the woman was murdered as Paula had issues with former addict now drug counselor Thadia Martin. Both were attracted to Dr. Cory Schaeffer, who is almost electrocuted in an electric car, which further affirms the belief by Harry and her sleuthing team that someone murdered Paula and tried to kill the physician.

The nineteenth Mrs. Murphy amateur sleuth (see Cat of the Century and Santa Clawed) is perhaps the most poignant tale of the long running series as the Brown tandem deftly focuses on breast cancer awareness inside of a well written whodunit. The cancer subplot supersedes the murder mystery summed up nicely in the Afterward by Ms. Brown's late mom: "You're going to be dead a long time. Do it now." Readers will enjoy the latest anthropomorphist mystery as the "real important characters" and the human support encourage Harry; who accompanied by her three pets investigate the death with the last word finally belonging to "maligned" Pewter.

Harriet Klausner

I have read most all of this series and anticipated the arrival of this book for months. It like all the others is what I enjoy and more. The only thing this time is I missed interaction with some of the stalwart characters. Such as Big Mim and Herbie :) Overall it was enjoyable. I thought allowing Harry to see some stress and overcome was great evidence of the books continuing to grow as a series. Happy Upcoming 20th Birthday to the Mrs. Murphy Series.

Another great book written by Rita Mae Brown. As always Harry is getting into messes and lands right side up. The subject of breast cancer is open and explained in good detail and is an encouragment to get a yearly breast exam. It describes the fears of many women as they wonder what will happen if I should lose a breast. I know from personal experience this is a scarry thing for women - luckily my sonagram came back clear and that was when I cried tears of relief. Cancer strikes so many and is an unexpected creature. My daughter's godfather passed away from cancer in his early 30's and never got to see his only son raised. Thanks for the great book. I too have lost kitties to feline lukemina - we love them and give them a good home until it is their time.