In a desperate bid to reduce the books that are collecting dust on my TBR shelves, I have decided to collaborate with another avid reader and fellow book reviewer, Nicole from Certified Book Addicts. The #20BACKLISTIN2020 challenge is a self paced challenge hosted by Jaylamm.Reads, Reading and Sunshine, and Cassidys.Bookshelf. The overall goal of this challenge is to read 20 titles from the backlist books that are currently sitting on your TBR pile. For this challenge I will be reading non review books and taking my selections directly from my chock-a-block TBR bookcases (there are two shelved back to back). I will be publishing my reviews of these books on my blog and social media sites on the first and third Tuesday of the month.
Book #15 in the #20BACKLISTIN2020 challenge
Estimated TBR Shelf Life: 1.5 years
EVERYONE’S INVITED.
EVERYONE’S A SUSPECT.
AND EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT IT.
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.
Review:
The Hunting Party is Lucy Foley’s first foray in the mystery and suspense genre. Set in a remote region of the Scottish highlands, a party of thirty somethings bring the new year in with a murderous bang. The Hunting Party is a book that I couldn’t put down, it was a tension filled tale from start to finish.
As a group of friends reunite to celebrate the new year, their party turns into a nightmare when one of the attendees of this party is murdered. With plenty of rivalries, jealousies, betrayals, resentments, secrets and lies swirling around this toxic friendship circle it doesn’t come as a surprise that someone is murdered. With suspects aplenty and a possible motive for all in the party to conduct the murder, this hunting party is thrown into chaos and suspicion. Who is responsible for the murder and why did they do it?
The Hunting Party is my third helping of Lucy Foley’s writing which closely follows my reading of the author’s most recent release, The Guest List. Lucy Foley is beginning to carve out a name for herself in the classic murder mystery category, made famous by novelists such as the late Agatha Christie. With the winter solstice only just passing us, the cold and long winter nights have been conducive to reading whodunit mysteries that can easily be devoured overnight. The Hunting Party is a great example of a book that I raced through in no time at all.
Foley sets her scene very well and The Hunting Party is dripping in atmosphere from page one. I could feel the bitter cold and sense the isolation, as well as entrapment from the moment I opened this novel. I haven’t read many novels based in Scotland or the Highlands so it was a refreshing change to be transported to this part of the world. The sense of place really compliments this novel, adding to the intense feeling of being trapped in a place you can’t escape from. I really appreciated this component of the novel.
The Hunting Party is told via a multiple perspective form of narration. We get to know the guests and the staff of the New Year’s Eve party during the course of the novel. My only criticism of the novel would be the protagonist set. I didn’t particularly like any of them and therefore it was hard to care for their welfare. The guests at the hunting party just seemed terribly entitled, bitter and messed up! While I was suspicious of the staff at the lodge, they were also not very likeable at all! Despite my clear distaste for the cast, Foley does a good job of drawing out the complicated character dynamics of this friendship group. It perplexed me times why this friendship set insisted on staying friends and partying together! Anyhow, we are delivered quite a salacious tale, defined by plenty of personal politics, resentments, bitter rivalries, clear jealousies, secrets and surprises. This gives Foley the power to play with some plot twists and plant some red herrings. It all adds to the entertainment value of the novel.
The Hunting Party manages to balance the shocks with some level of predictability and readers may or may not be too surprised by the final turns of events, along with the revelation of the culprit. The Hunting Party proved to be a shady tale of friendships that take a dark turn. A more than agreeable whodunit.
**** 4 stars
The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley was published on 3rd December 2018 by HarperCollins. Details on how to purchase the book can be found here.
To learn more about the author of The Hunting Party, Lucy Foley, visit here.
