The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley

3 stars

The Hunting Party is a character-driven murder mystery set in Loch Corrin, an exclusive hunting lodge in the Highlands of Scotland.  

The story primarily unfolds over the course of a 4-day trip a group of 8 pals from university takes to celebrate the New Year. While the focus is on the present day, flashbacks to the past give context to some of the relationships and the events that transpire during the trip.

Each chapter of this closed-room suspense novel is told from the perspective of one of the individuals at Loch Corrin. I listened to the audiobook, and with so many characters, it was hard to keep them straight at first. I did enjoy the accents of the various narrators, which provided some authenticity to the story. The descriptions of the setting also translated really well to the audiobook format.

“I suppose we all carry around different versions of ourselves.”

Lucy Foley, The Hunting Party

The story starts slowly and keeps its deliberate pacing until about two-thirds of the way through when it picks up speed and becomes much more interesting. 

Foley doesn’t reveal the identity of the victim or the murderer until very late in the book, and most of the main characters are unlikable. These familiar elements, combined with an eerie remote setting, make the storyline feel a bit like a rerun of The Guest List. 

Although the storyline was strikingly similar to The Guest List, I ended up liking it a bit more. I didn’t guess all of the twists, including the identity of the killer. There was also something slightly more relatable about some of the characters. 

I do hope Foley’s newest book, The Paris Apartment, mixes up the plot a bit. I definitely do not need to read this same basic storyline for the third time.