The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley #BookReview

EVERYONE’S INVITED.
EVERYONE’S A SUSPECT.

Bristling with tension, bitter rivalries, and toxic friendships, get ready for the most hotly-anticipated thriller of 2019.

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 Hunting Party was an interesting murder mystery with a nice big bonus. Not only is there the hunt for a killer in a close circle of friends but one of the biggest joys for me was actually figuring out who the victim was. It mustn’t have been easy to write the story and describe what happened without giving anything away towards the identity of the murder victim but I couldn’t catch any of the POV’s slipping at any point. It’s actually only in the final part of the novel that you find out who it is although I did make some progress myself in ticking off a couple of persons from the list. The strategy Lucy Foley used made it possible to predict who wasn’t murdered rather than who was and in the end I had it all limited to 2 or 3 possibilities. The same questions kept mulling in my head however: who deserved it, who provoked it, who held such a terrible secret it was worth killing for? As the story progresses it seems there’s more than one likely candidate to give and to receive.

Even with so many guests I never had any problems discerning who’s who, although I had my own set of mnemonics to remember them: there were the stars (Miranda & Julien), the wannabees (Emma & Mark), the happy family (Giles, Samira and baby Prya), the perfect son-in-laws (Nick & Bo) and of course the underdog (Katie). I really liked Katie, the only single person of the company and a bit of an odd one out. The most memorable one was Miranda though, she’s the one who always wants to be in the picture and she was highly intriguing.

The first night at the lodge – game night – already showed a few glitches in what seems at first sight a perfect group of friends as it gears up for the fateful New Year’s Eve. A copious dinner and even more amounts of alcohol makes everyone quite unhibited and frank. When they start a game of truth or dare you know they’re asking for trouble. It was quite a rollercoaster ride of twists and reveals that followed, some I saw coming but others came right out of the blue.

I very much enjoyed getting to know this lot, the characters were nicely fleshed out and I love it when you scratch the surface and there’s so much to discover and believe me there were secrets and lies flying around your ears. I also really liked the two additions to the group, Doug and Heather. I didn’t know what reasons they had to want to move and work at such a remote location but I warmed to both of them quickly and found them to be the most enjoyable people in the story.

If you enjoyed similar novels like Sleep and An Unwanted Guest then you’re definitely going to like this one as well, it keeps right up with those and even steps up the game delivering two mysteries in one go.

I received a free copy of the novel from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest opinion.