The Hunting Party
The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley is described as a “tense, perfectly paced murder mystery”, and while I wouldn’t agree that the pacing was perfect, I really enjoyed reading this psychological thriller/murder mystery with my book club.
In The Hunting Party, Lucy Foley presents a group of college friends who get together each year to celebrate New Years’ Eve. This year, Emma has planned what she hopes will be a spectacular stay at a remote lodge in Scotland, but when the weather turns dangerously cold and snowy, the level of tensions begins to rise. When one of the guests goes missing on New Years Day, everyone becomes a suspect and a potential next victim.
“Some people, given just the right amount of pressure, taken out of their usual, comfortable environments, don’t need much encouragement at all to become monsters.”
The book jumps between the perspectives of Emma, Miranda, and Katie starting three days before the “incident”, as well as Lodge employees Heather and Doug beginning at the time of the “incident”. I found it interesting that the friends/partners Samira, Giles, Julian, Mark, and the other guests/third employee didn’t have any chapters from their perspectives. I tend to like a book with multiple perspectives, but I think a slight complaint here was that hearing each of their perspectives sometimes meant we got multiple perspectives of the same party or walk or meal. While that was, at times, super illuminating and well-done, other times it felt repetitive.
None of the characters in this book are very likeable, but I think that is part of what propels the narrative and makes it intriguing to read. I also found it fascinating that the reveal of the victim came very close to the end of the book. Not only is it a who-done-it, but you find yourself wondering which of the guests is missing. The tension among the group was there from the moment they boarded their train for Scotland, but there are moments where it surges, and moments where it seems to relax.
The personalities, their histories with each other, and the way they all raise suspicion at one point or another made it a Knives Out/Glass Onion type of mystery. I don’t think this book is anything super new with tropes like them being snowed in and trapped and being friends but they all have secrets, but I still found it fun to read and the ending was a bit surprising. Ultimately, it’s a fun, wintery mystery.
“But that’s the thing about old friends, isn’t it? Sometimes they don’t even realize that they no longer have anything in common. That maybe they don’t even like each other anymore.”
