Book Review - The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley

Title: The Hunting Party
Author: Lucy Foley
Genre: Thriller/ Mystery
Published: 2018
 
Description: 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 themselves.
 
They arrive on December 30^th, just before a historic blizzard seals the lodge off from the outside world. Two day 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 reminiscence about the past. But after a decade, the wight of secret resentments has grown too heavy for the group’s tenuous nostalgia to bear. Amir 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.
 
Review: Friends Mark, Emma, Miranda, Julien, Nick, Bo, Samira, Giles and Katie hadn’t been together in a while. Now they got the chance to celebrate New Year’s Eve and spend four days together. Emma, Mark’s girlfriend, had arranged everything and hopes her friends will enjoy their stay in and around the modern glass lodge managed by Heather and gamekeeper Doug.
 
Most of them have known each other since they studied at Oxford, while Emma feels like she’s never really going to fit in because she only joined afterwards, because of her relationship with Mark. One of the POV’s we follow is hers.
 
Miranda is the ‘it-girl’ of the group. The beautiful one, the one that lights up the room, the one that everyone wants to be, the one who is fearless, the one who has everything. In college, she had a stalker, but she never told her friends that she feels she is still sometimes followed. She is the second POV.
 
Katie is the third POV, the only single person in the group. She is the quiet one. Katie is also Miranda’s best friend, but somewhat distant lately. But Katie also has some secrets. The other two POV’s are from Heather, the hostess of the lodge, and Doug, the gamekeeper. Doug’s chapters are the only ones told in the third-person, the others all in first-person.
 
We jump back and forward in time, from the days before New Year’s and after the holiday. It’s very easy to follow. The book started good, I was intrigued. The setting is amazing. A snowy, secluded Scottish lodge is a perfect setting for a mystery thriller story. But after that first chapter, not a lot happens in these first 200 pages. Just everyday drama between a group of old friends. People who have secrets, talking about having secrets, but not mentioning what they are. We don’t know who was killed yet. That last part I don’t really mind, it builds up the tension. But author Lucy Foley dragged this out way too long.
 
After about 200 pages, there are some twists and turns. All but one were not very surprising and I around this point I predicted who was murdered and who did it. I didn’t really like any of the characters and aside from the ones whose point of view we follow, we don’t really get to know any of them very well.
 
Even though the setting is perfect for suspense, it eventually wasn’t enough to make this thriller exciting. I believe this is Lucy Foley’s thriller debut. Her later thrillers, “The Guest List” and “The Paris Apartment” I enjoyed a lot more.
 
Rating: 2,5/ 5