The Hunt Ball by Rita Mae Brown (2005, Hardcover)

Rita Mae Brown is a talented writer who pens a good mystery. You can love or hate her fox hunting, her politics, and her fondness for the old Virginia money set, and still enjoy her mysteries.
I am personally fond of her talking animals and their insights about the foibles of human kind. What wise animal would be very interested in the size of someone's gem stones at a formal ball (except perhaps a posssum in some of Ms. Brown's books who does love the bright and shiny), though of course people have been known to care deeply about such odd things.
Rita Mae Brown writes the kind of mysteries you don't want to put down because you have to figure out who did it. This mystery, revolving around a small elite Virginia school, does some educating about things historical, and lets you search a cast of interesting characters for someone capable of killing.
Ms. Brown writes in pictures and you can just see the pandemonium at the Hunt Ball, where things go very much wrong. The red herring is a very red one, and there is some suspension of disbelief required as the ending hurtles at you, but what a fun read.
This sometimes homesick Virginia girl knows a bit about the topic of things "Virginia" and "Not Virginia" (a very bad thing to be) and Ms. Brown has hit the mark with much of that.
A good mystery. Well done.