"The Hunting Party"

"The Hunting Party"
Written by Lucy Foley
Review written by Diana Iozzia



Please do not get me wrong. I absolutely love an isolated, claustrophobic, cabin-in-the-woods type story but absolutely do not give me that many plot twists. So many plot twists that only a few short days later, I can barely remember them all.

To begin, "The Hunting Party" has a few different perspectives. We have quiet, awkward Katie. There's loud, slightly immature, and wild Miranda. We have reserved and unsure Emma. We read through their perspectives, as well as the gamekeeper Doug's perspective as we build up to the climax. We also have the perspective of Heather, the director of the lodge resort.

In this story, we have a group of friends and their spouses all on a Scottish highland trip for New Year's. We all know the holidays can be stressful, but my God, this is one to remember. In a vein of classic Agatha Christie meets the modern Ruth Ware, we unfold the mystery. Who is the dead body in the snow? Who could have killed them? Is the killer planning to kill again? As we read through the perspectives leading up to New Year's Eve, we do not really have any irksome red herrings. We become suspicious of certain characters, but the motives are sort of thrown in there as secrets unfold. Personally, I would prefer a slow build with red herrings and clues, rather than opening Pandora's box and unleashing all of them in one fellow swoop. I personally like reading a mystery, in which I sort of figure out who could possibly be the killer or victim. This did not give me the option. It was more like a volcano erupting.

I enjoyed the twists as they came, but I found myself reading back certain sections. We have unreliable narrators, we soon learn, as details and clues manifest themselves late in the story, rather than when it would have made sense early on. Surely, if we are told the story in a sane-minded perspective before the secrets are revealed, we would understand certain details that characters would not have been hiding in their own minds. Does this make sense? Perhaps not to a person who has not read it yet. Please sign off once you have.

In all, I do rate it four out of five stars. It was a fun, exhilarating ride. Am I wrong to now want to go on a little wintry cottage trip like this? Hopefully it would not end in an icy body... but we'll see.


Oh, I also received an advanced reader's edition for reviewing purposes! Thank you to William Morrow!