Book Review - Lucy Foley's The Hunting Party
The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley
Published by: William Morrow
Publication Date: February 12th, 2019
Format: Hardcover, 336 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy
Since their Oxford days a motley group of thirtysomethings have rung in the New Year together. Though this year they aren't all festive holiday joy as they arrive at the idyllic and isolated estate, Loch Corrin, in the Scottish Highlands. Mark's newish girlfriend Emma has arranged the trip for his college friends down to the very last detail. Of course, she couldn't control the weather, the fact that there is another group at the lodge, or all the secrets the group is concealing from one another. But this group has survived this long, what's one more New Year's Eve? Miranda has always been the leader of the group. The life of the party. But her supposedly perfect life is starting to careen out of control and her husband, Julien, has many secrets, only a few that she knows. She thinks a baby would solve everything. Boy is she wrong. Katie, who is a successful lawyer, has been putting her career ahead of her life for too long and while Miranda might think she's Katie's best friend, more and more she's been turning to Nick, who is there with his boyfriend Bo. As for Samira and Giles, they are so wrapped up with their newborn and the fact that they haven't slept since the birth that they barely notice they are on vacation. But when trapped together how long will fake bonhomie and champagne get you? How long can you reminiscence about the past? They have all changed over the intervening decade since they graduated college and not everyone is willing to accept the change. Not everyone is who they say they are. And what of the staff at Loch Corrin? Can they be trusted? Being trapped in the wilderness with your supposed best friends might be a nightmare, but trapped in the wilderness with strangers could be the most dangerous thing that could happen to this group. Trapped by the blizzard they have no way of escaping each other and one of them will die at the hands of another. But who will die and who will kill? Only the New Year will reveal all.
This is a book that pulls a bait and switch, in that your read the blurb, you see it compared to Tana French and Ruth Ware and Agatha Christie, you look at the cover, you think, country house in the Scottish highlands, a blizzard, a betrayal, and murder! YAS! I will read that! Instead you get a modern glass building with cabins for all the guests and no suspense at all. I figured out the killer in about two seconds because of the limited choice of narrators. It was like a vicious Peter's Friends, wherein you actually hope they all kill each other, mixed with that stupid Kevin Bacon house movie that got all those rave reviews, but it should be noted that this doesn't have the supernatural twist. It had no twist. Now I'm not saying that this couldn't have worked in the glass hunting lodge or with this cast of characters, I'm saying that it needed to be better written to work with the environment and suspects. Also it totally needed a different cover. I mean, seriously, did the designer even read the book or was it designed off the deceptive blurb? OK, I need to STOP bitching about the cover so let's concentrate on what annoyed me the most, and yes, I'm totally going to ignore the stupid secondary plot about what's going on at this resort because it doesn't even deserve a mention, what annoyed me was the choice in narrators. So we have four females told in first person and one male told in third person, which, yes, I'm groaning at the cliche of switching narration styles even as I type this. But the problem with this is it narrows the events from this motley cast of twelve or so characters to four. Because obviously the killer and the victim are among these four first person narrators. Why Lucy Foley would show her hand in such an obvious manner is beyond comprehension to me. What's more one of those narrators has no connection to the group, so she's immediately eliminated. So you can see why I think this is the biggest failing of the book. What's worse though is that every woman sounds the same. If each section didn't have the character's name at the start you would have no idea who was talking at you. The characters are just cardboard cutouts that all sound the same. Do yourself a favor and just steer clear of this party.
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