Readalong Recommendation: The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley
“A ripping, riveting murder mystery — wily as Agatha Christie, charged with real menace, real depth. Perfect for fans of Ruth Ware.” — A.J. Finn, author of The Woman in the Window
The Hunting Party is everywhere — it’s in shop fronts, it’s on the tube, it’s Waterstones Thriller Of The Month. And it doesn’t take much to see why.
Loch Corrin is an escape, hidden away up in the Scottish Highlands. When the snow falls heavily one New Years, eleven friends and the staff running the lodge and a rogue Icelandic couple are unreachable by any emergency services. So what happens when one of our guests disappears in the night — and even worse, when a body is found?
Lucy Foley has contructed an intricate novel within which the narrative strands are consistently crossing over and changing hands. There is a deliberate back and forth structure that shifts between past and present, as well as character perspective. This works hard to enrich the story by throwing readers into the minds of these characters straight away.
11 friends, who haven’t seen each other in the best part of a year, thrown together at a remote lodge at Loch Corrin, are bound to have some tales to unwind and some thoughts in the moment that will need explaining.
This style of writing creates an immediate sense of manic grappling with information which continues throughout the novel as readers learn more about the characters — specifically what drives them to the point where someone has been killed.
There are some tensions that are noticeable instantly. Katie is displaced from the group as ‘the single one’ — she has a separate seat on the train and a smaller cabin-for-one once arriving at the lodge. Her reactions to this, and then further, the other characters responses to this, explain that this is not a new situation to be in with Katie. Miranda has an air of ‘head cheerleader’ about her; she enjoys the power that having people look up to her gives her.
In the first few chapters we meet Heather, woman who runs the lodge at Loch Corrin, and Doug, an ex-marine, who acts as a game keeper for the land. Both, although seen as pieces of furniture at Loch Corrin, have two of the most interesting backstories — especially when you find out why have both chosen to live in near- isolation with only a few visiting tourist groups a year to look after.
As we move through the first few chapters it becomes very apparent that the friends are no longer as close as they once were. I think this is a really interesting narrative to play with. When we’re younger — or even when we’re at University or College — we assume that those are the friends we’ll keep for life. It’s not always true; the friends who are the most present in my life currently are people I’ve met at work or that I met after finishing my education. We grow up, we figure out who we are and finally get to start making decisions that rely solely on us; decisions that don’t need to take into considerations how your friends might react.
That being said, this particular bunch of friends have grown up and grown away. They are all very different people. Miranda; queen bee, can seem spiteful or mean. Emma wants to make people happy, wants to be in the center, wants to be the favourite. Mark; loud, bolshy and arrogant. Then on the other hand, we have smaller characters who seem content with their lot; Giles & Samira and, my murder myster character, Nick and his partner Bo.
As Foley fills in the blank backstories of this large group of characters, they begin to become real people with motivations, expectations and colour behind their outline. The way that the author delivers the information is delicious; slowly but surely. Each character is coloured — not in their own words — but through the retelling of their past in someone else’s chapter. We get to act as detective and pick up the clues as we go, piecing together the story of who they are and how they go to to be here, feeling the way they do.
It’s here that Lucy Foley has readers exactly where she wants them; dying for more information that is her prerogative to deliver to us drip by drip.
One of the most compelling characters in the novel is Miranda. Married to Julien, who works at a hedge fund and has quite a few of his own secrets it would seem, Miranda entertains the idea that other members in the group are strongly attracted to her — again, she enjoys that power. She lets them look, but never touch. That’s the deal. She also has no qualms in expressing her desire for others — she made no secret of admiring Doug and his “rippling muscles” as soon as she climbed into his Land Rover. If we were to meet Miranda at high school — before the novel introduces her at University — I would draw parallels between Blair Waldorf. Now, at this age, she reminds me of Amazing Amy from Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl.
When Miranda is on her own, she’s less cutting of others. It seems to be predominantly in front of other people that this feature of her personality really shines. We see her out running once or twice in the novel and it’s here that she seems almost normal.
This book enticed me very slowly at the beginning, but then just like falling, I was suddenly sold hook, line and sinker. The first 100 pages took me three days, the last two hundred and fifty pages took me four hours. Once I knew the characters, I was gripped and ripping through the pages faster than ever. Foley ramps up the suspence with her clever use of cliffhangers. At the end of every chapter, I vowed that that would be enough reading for tonight and every time I ignored my own rule and kept going. I couldn’t not read on.
The Icelandic couple, who were also staying at Loch Corrin, were a surprising addition to the plot but they served well as a marker for doubt. Every time I thought that I had figured something out, I would have to question — but why are they here? What is their involvement here? And that thought spiral lead me into disarray multiple times.
I’m always disappointed when a good book ends — I want to stay wrapped up in these characters, discovering more dirty laundry and even dirtier crimes. The end of The Hunting Party did tie everything together neatly, reminding us of clues we simply missed and making us all whizz back through the chapters to see what we missed — now, of course, all the more obvious. I do wonder about more elements of the fall out though — I would have liked to have seen some characters discover the truth about various sub-plots and secrets whispered in corrdiors. But I think that is a reflection of my nosey nature not the ending of this novel.
I would read another Lucy Foley novel in a heartbeat. As far as I’m aware this is her first crime/thriller and I’ll read the next as soon as I can. It is a huge skill to be able to hold so many characters as entertaining, running back and forth between time, place and narrative thread, but Foley pulls it off expertly. I would recommend it to fans of Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (the Miranda effect) and to fans of The Secret History by Donna Tartt (scholastic friends in a literary whodunnit).
This review features a book that was gifted to me, by Tandem Collective. I took part in the #THPReadalong with several other influencers and bookstagrammers — all of which you can find detailed in the #THPReadalong Highlight on my Instagram.
As part of the #THPReadalong, we were invited by Tandem Collective to try and take the most inventive flay lay photos that represented our characters.
Here is my take on Nick — explanation below the photo (warning: may contain spoilers).
