The Hunting Partyby Lucy Foley
Published by Harper Collins
Mystery, thriller, fiction
All of them are friends. One of them is a killer.
During the languid days of the Christmas break, a group of thirtysomething friends from Oxford meet to welcome in the New Year together, a tradition they began as students ten years ago. For this vacation, they've chosen an idyllic and isolated estate in the Scottish Highlands - the perfect place to get away and unwind by themselves.
They arrive on December 30th, just before a historic blizzard seals the lodge off from the outside world.
Two days later, on New Year's Day, one of them is dead.
The trip began innocently enough: admiring the stunning if foreboding scenery, champagne in front of a crackling fire, and reminiscences about the past. But after a decade, the weight of secret resentments has grown too heavy for the group's tenuous nostalgia to bear. Amid the boisterous revelry of New Year's Eve, the cord holding them together snaps.
Now one of them is dead... and another of them did it.
Keep your friends close, the old adage goes. But just how close is too close?
The synopsis got me like no other: the Scottish Highlands, a group of people, and one killer. I've always been fascinated by closed doors murder mysteries, therefore I had high hopes for The Hunting Party, especially since early reviews raved about how amazing the book is. Unfortunately, the story was a little bit miss for me, for a few reasons.
The Hunting Party features nine friends, who gather together to celebrate the new year, and two employees of the place they stay at. There's five different point of views: Heather (caretaker), Doug (groundskeeper), Emma, Katie and Miranda. Honestly, it felt too much and the author made a strange decision, as all the female point of views were written in first person and Doug's in third person. Not only that, the three friends sounded so similar that it was difficult to keep up. The identity of both victim and killer narrowed down pretty quickly, because half of the nine friends got a lot more attention than the rest. These kind of structural choices ate some of the mystery.
Another thing was the character chemistry and their bonds. It became quickly clear that the group of friends weren't really close. They had secrets and resentment, and I ended up asking, why are they even friends? They barely liked each other and especially Miranda seemed to delight in bullying others. They were all pretty much unlikable characters, few of them were alright but then again, they were the ones left in the background. I did find Heather and Doug's chapters more enjoyable and interesting, because they weren't snobby and felt more likable characters.
There were redeeming qualities in The Hunting Party; it's fast paced and easy to devour, and the setting of the remote Scottish Highlands was stunning. I read it in three days and it kept me relatively captivated, but I think it could have been so much better if the point of views had been limited or structured differently, and the characters hadn't been such unlikable.
Overall, The Hunting Party was a meh read for me. I'd recommend something else, mainly And Then There Were None, for closed doors murder mystery, because this one doesn't have that much mystery or heart-pounding thrill, and is a bit predictable.
3 of 5 stars
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