The Hunting Party

Title: The Hunting Party

Author: Lucy Foley

Genre: Mystery/Psychological Thriller

Published: 2018

Obtained: Amazon

A group of friends meet for the new year, as they do every year since they graduated from school. This time, the location is at a remote lodge in the Scottish highlands. They become snowed in following a blizzard. As the snow builds up around them, so does the tension as old regrets and secrets come to light. One of the friends winds up dead and it’s obvious that it must be one of the individuals staying in the lodge. But who?

I was so looking forward to this read, after reading the short synopsis about it. The story takes place in the Scottish Highlands, involves a mysterious death among friends and had what was, overall, a super creepy premise. I was sorely disappointed, unfortunately. Lucy Foley has a way with words, her writing was strong. I felt unattached to the characters as they were lacking depth. I was disappointed that there was not more focus on the amazing setting and I found the mystery to be lacking of vitality.

Scotland is place near and dear to my heart. I’ve been twice having strong family ties to the country. From personal experience, I can sincerely state that the landscape is some of the most beautiful country I’ve ever seen—rich in colors, fog and mist and rolling hills in shades of green I didn’t even know existed until I saw them with my own eyes. Perhaps I hyped this all up in my own mind, but there was none of this really in the book. The characters were from London, so I guess I was expecting the highlands to be a major focal point. I honestly forgot about halfway through that the book was taking place in Scotland, as the writing didn’t transport me there.

The characters were relatively vapid. I felt no real connection to anyone—I didn’t root for anyone. Granted, there were all significantly flawed in regards to their history and personalities (nobody cares for perfect characters). But, I just didn’t feel any pull towards any of them, and sometimes got the men confused. As the mystery unfolded, I predicted a lot of the outcomes and wasn’t really blown away by anyone’s big secrets.

The plot was extremely similar to Ruth Ware’s In A Dark, Dark Wood. Several acquaintances hulled up in a remote location where a mysterious death occurs and everyone is suspect. It played out similarly, though not exact. But, the “big reveal” was flat and anti-climatic. I was on the edge of my seat for a while, but that didn’t last very long. I felt like I had read this story before, and when the ending was slightly different I was left feeling unsatisfied.

Lucy Foley can turn a phrase quite well. Her book consisted of really beautiful writing. Her mystery was pretty well crafted and didn’t have any major plot holes or gaps that I could spot. The problem for me was that the writing seemed to tell me most things instead of showing me or leaving some of it up to the imagination. There was a lot of potential for a really great story, it just lacked some luster overall in the build up of the mystery. Overall, I gave this book a 2 out of 5 stars. While I appreciated her writing and style, I was disappointed in the lack of character depth, overall setting and mystery. I recommend sipping something dark and dry to pair with the dry, and sometimes terrible, personalities of the characters and the mystery surrounding them. I enjoyed a malbec called Tall Dark Stranger, which I thought went well with the whodunnit-feel of this book. It contains a strong alcohol content of 12.5%, which helped me digest the unfavorable aspects of the book.