The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley

Book Review

The Hunting Party is a fast paced read with a foot in the psychological thriller genre and a hint of the early 20th century murder mystery greats.

Here’s the blurb:

In a remote hunting lodge, deep in the Scottish wilderness, old friends gather for New Year.

The beautiful one
The golden couple
The volatile one
The new parents
The quiet one
The city boy
The outsider

The victim.

Not an accident – a murder among friends.

The premise of the book is seven friends gathering for new year in a remote hunting lodge in Scotland. They’ve chosen the lodge because it allows them to get away from the city and offers isolation. It becomes clear these people have been friends for a long time although it also becomes clear, as is often the case in real life, that no one really knows us, no matter how long we’ve been friends. They are joined at the lodge by three members of staff who all have their own eccentricities and agendas, linked to their often traumatic pasts.

You are not told who has died leaving you with two things to solve: who’s dead and who did it.

The story is reminiscent of Agatha Christie and Patricia Highsmith in terms of the premise (but not the writing style). The area is isolated, the weather unpredictable (bad weather arrives in the form of snow meaning the group can’t leave) and the cast are a group of rich arrogant young people with troubled pasts, reminiscent of the novels of the late war-scarred 1940s.

The short chapters make it easy to pick up again, which means you can just read a chapter in-between chores or waiting for appointments. It is told from the point of view of five of the main characters. This does mean that you never get to hear the point of view of the five other characters (a couple with a baby, a gay couple and another member of staff). This makes them feel like a token gesture and redundant as characters, only there to extra create conflict for the others, or obfuscate the facts, which isn’t necessarily required given you’ve no idea who did it or even who’s dead.

As the mystery unfurls the clues are all there and I worked out who was dead, who had done it and the red herrings, about half way through. I was then waiting for a twist that never arrived. This didn’t make it less enjoyable though. The ending was messy with characters retaining secrets and some of them never really receiving any true consequences for their actions - again probably true of life, unfortunately.

All in all if you like fast paced murder mysteries with a hint of psychological thriller, then Lucy Foley’s ‘The Hunting Party’ is a quick, easy and enjoyable read. It has a fairly predictable plot but then I’ve read a lot of murder mysteries! I would pick up another of Foley’s books as they make a great holiday read.

You can buy The Hunting Party, in all good bookshops. If you would like to buy a copy online, please consider visiting my page on Bookshop.org where I have gathered some of the books I read and recommend. Here you will find a plethora of myth, legend and folktale.

And don’t forget to support your local library too. See if they have a copy to borrow.