The Hunting Party

This book has a lot of factual inaccuracies. It is written in quite an immature style where the plot is rushed, characters are not fleshed out well and they are all rather stereotypical. E.G: broody gamekeeper from the country, 'Londoners' who know nothing about the countryside. The writer spends alot of time on descriptive writing, which although necessary, when done in excess takes away from the narrative and any suspense from the story. There is a lot going on in the story in terms of mysteries, too many to be succesfully unraveled in one novel and it ends up with some revelations being uncovered at very odd points of the story. I don't understand how it became such a renowned bestseller, but the similar sounding positive reviews seems to point towards alot of money put towards marketing and promotion. A false success and a badly written story to prove it. It is nothing like Agatha Christie

🅜🅨 🅡🅔🅥🅘🅔🅦 🅞🅕 THE HUNTING PARTY by Lucy Foley ⭐⭐⭐⭐ A group of old university friends, spend New Year as a group at an isolated hunting lodge in the Highlands of Scotland. Each has a secret they don't want exposed. Is one secret worth killing for? Two days after their 30th of December arrival, one of their number is dead! The friends have been drifting apart for several years. Different jobs, children. Just drifted apart. The annual New Year get together felt like a desperate attempt to cling onto those earlier friendships even after they had long become stale. To be honest I didn't really like the main characters, other than staff members Doug and Heather. While all damaged in some way, Doug and Heather seemed the most human of the lot. They still had their secrets and problems, which I should add were portrayed sensitively and accurately, but given the full picture understandably so. There were hints of Agetha Christie in this twisting, turning, story. It also felt a little bit like Cluedo. "Was it Mark in the hunting lodge with the champagne bottle? Oh right. No." While you are kept guessing right to the end about who both victim and murderer are, the fact that none of the group were very likeable meant I didn't feel any emotional connection to them, so on the big reveal I felt unmoved. That said, the beautifull descriptions of the Highland location made it so easy for my to visualise the setting. I loved that! Plus when the snow hits, you can sense the claustrophobic atmosphere, being unable to search for their (at the time) missing friend, and finding they're trapped there with a murderer. Overall I did enjoy reading The Hunting Party, but wish the friends had been more likeable. I have given this book four stars.

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. A decade ago they were friends at Oxford & decide to have a getaway for the New Year in a remote Scottish lodge, they are cut off by snow. Someone ends up dead. I found myself engrossing in this thriller it harks back to a Christie novel & has lots of twists & turns. They were friends years ago but very quickly the cracks appear & do they actually like each other now. I liked how the book flipped from the present to a few days earlier when they arrived. I also liked that the victim was a mystery for quite a way into the book. The characters were well drawn & I liked it that they were all unlikeable. A different read for me but one that I really enjoyed & I look forward to reading more from the author My honest review is for a special copy I voluntarily read