The Hunting Party

By Lucy Foley

Published by HarperCollins

What’s it about?

A group of university friends meet up at a hunting lodge in the remote regions of snow-covered Scotland to celebrate New Year.

One of the guests goes missing and a body is found. One of the guests has been killed. One of the guests is the killer.

What I think:

There been a lot of recent Bookstagram buzz about this book and it is the Waterstone’s Thriller of the Month for November 2019.

I read it as part of an Instagram readalong which was really good fun. Some of the bookstagrammers had been given specific characters to think about and reading group questions to answer – hearing what other people thought as you read which made it a really interactive.

This is hard book to review because you can’t give away spoilers!

The identity of both the victim and the murder are withheld until the end which keeps the reader guessing.

The narrative is split between some of guests which reveals the entangled close relationships that started at university and are gradually becoming more distant with time, careers marriage and families.

Beneath the nostalgia and memories of university, resentments simmer and jealousy lingers. Memories of the past are still very much influencing the present.

The narrative is also told by the two people working at the lodge, Heather and Doug. Both have their own pasts and dark secrets that add to he sense if unease.

The Scottish landscape is an important feature of the novel. The isolated location, lack of communication which is compounded by snowfall and the silence, make this a perfect setting for a country house style murder mystery with a modern twist.

I really enjoyed this book. My sympathies with various characters switched and changed as I got to know them more and I was intrigued right to the end. This would be a perfect stocking filler winter read for the holidays.

Thank you HarperCollins for my copy of The Hunting Party. If you want to join the hunt head to:

Waterstone’s: click here

Amazon.co.uk: click here