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If you've read Ruth Ware's IN A DARK, DARK WOOD, Lucy Foley's THE HUNTING PARTY is going to seem familiar: a small group of friends isolated by landscape and snow from the rest of the world; a glass building where they feel, at times, as if they're on display and being watched by unseen eyes; relationships with unexpected—and ultimately deadly—secrets. And if you're a Ruth Ware fan, THE HUNTING PARTY will appeal to you for many of the same reasons Ware's novels do with its suspense and undercurrents. But THE HUNTING PARTY is a fun (and creepy) read in its own right, too.
Every year, nine friends meet for a New Year's Eve reunion, and this year, the newest member of the group has arranged for them to gather at a remote lodge in Scotland. They've been warned that this is a wild place far different from London, and there's a possibility they could be snowed in and completely cut off from the rest of the world. This appeals to all of them, and while things are a bit uneasy right from the outset, the friends find their groove and are determined to have fun. Foley tells the story by switching among narrators, giving perspectives of three of the guests and two of the lodge's employees. She also moves back and forth between past and present of the four days over which events play out, concealing the identity of both the murderer and the victim until the last few pages, although she plays fair, providing lots of telling details (as well as red herrings) along the way. The narrators are all fairly complex, and all are hiding secrets. That and the fact that The Highland Ripper is killing women in the area add to the overall suspense, as does the fact that they do get snowed in and have very little ability to contact the police or anyone who might provide help and/or protection. Of course, that also narrows the field of suspects to the group of friends themselves and the four other people on the estate at the time of the killing. That, too, puts everyone further on edge, and several subplots also increase the intrigue.
In the end, THE HUNTING PARTY is an interesting read that lends itself more to watching the events unfold rather than racing thriller-like to the finish line: it's tense, but it's more of a slow burn rather than a fast page-turner. Some of the events and characters are a bit contrived, and a couple of characters mysteriously disappear from the pages with no mention, but overall, the novel is satisfyingly entertaining and is wrapped up nicely, with one last unsettling twist to finish.
§ Meredith Frazier, a writer with a background in English literature, lives in Dallas, Texas
Reviewed by Meredith Frazier, January 2019
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