The Hunting Party
Lucy Foley, 2019
HarperCollins
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062868909
Summary
A shivery, atmospheric, page-turning novel of psychological suspense in the tradition of Agatha Christie, in which a group of old college friends are snowed in at a hunting lodge … and murder and mayhem ensue.
Everyone's invited … everyone's a suspect.… All of them are friends. One of them is a killer.
During the languid days of the Christmas break, a group of thirtysomething friends from Oxford meet to welcome in the New Year together, a tradition they began as students ten years ago. For this vacation, they’ve chosen an idyllic and isolated estate in the Scottish Highlands—the perfect place to get away and unwind by themselves.
They arrive on December 30th, just before a historic blizzard seals the lodge off from the outside world.
Two days later, on New Year’s Day, one of them is dead.
The trip began innocently enough—admiring the stunning if foreboding scenery, champagne in front of a crackling fire, and reminiscences about the past. But after a decade, the weight of secret resentments has grown too heavy for the group’s tenuous nostalgia to bear. Amid the boisterous revelry of New Year’s Eve, the cord holding them together snaps.
Now one of them is dead … and another one of them did it.
Keep your friends close, the old adage goes. But just how close is too close? (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1985
• Where—London, England, UK
• Education—Durham University; University College London
• Currently—lives in London, England
Lucy Foley is a British novelist, born and still living in London. She is best known for her works of historical fiction, but she also published two murder mysteries, The Hunting Party (2019) and The Guest List (2020).
After studying English Literature at Durham University in Northeast England and University College London, Foley worked for several years as a fiction editor in the publishing industry, before leaving to write full-time. The Hunting Party was inspired by a particularly remote spot in Scotland that fired her imagination.
Foley's historical novels—The Book of Lost and Found (2015), The Invitation (2016) and Last Letter from Istanbul (2018)—have been translated into sixteen languages. Her journalism has appeared in ES Magazine, Sunday Times Style, Grazia and more. (Adapted from Amazon.)
Book Reviews
Lucy Foley proves that the traditional country-house murder formula… can still work brilliantly.… Superb.
Times (UK)
Foley excels at the small details that make up a person… builds the tension cleverly and creepily, underlining the point that old friends aren’t always the best.
Observer (UK)
A claustrophobic, compulsive read.
Tatler (UK)
Like a deliciously drawn out game of Clue, this novel brings together a group of Oxford friends at a remote Scottish highlands estate for the Christmas holidays.…Foley paints such a vivid hunting-lodge-and-lochs setting that you’ll immediately be booking your own highland fling, clandestine killers or no.
National Geographic
A tense, perfectly paced murder mystery.
People
A great update on the classic country house murder… brilliantly builds the tension.
Good Housekeeping
Historical novelist Foley makes an auspicious thriller debut.… Foley spins her story skillfully through multiple narrators, and if she’s less sure-handed with character, this still makes for a cracklingly suspenseful story for a long winter’s night.
Publishers Weekly
In her first crime novel, Foley takes a group of thirtyish Oxford graduates who celebrate New Year's Eve together to a dreamily remote estate in the Scottish Highlands. They're snowed in by a blizzard of historic proportions, and by New Year's one of them lies dead.
Library Journal
Anyone who’s grown apart from old friends will recognize the yearning depicted here to make everything as it was.… Readers are left wondering until the end which guest has died as well as who the killer is; they will be well rewarded by the story’s ending.
Booklist
[T]old in flashbacks from several different characters' perspectives, each with a different… dark secret…, as is classic in this form of the whodunit.… Plot, reasonably clever. Setting, nicely done. Characters, two-dimensional stereotypes, but you can't have everything.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, please use our GENERIC MYSTERY QUESTIONS to start a discussion for THE HUNTING PARTY … then take off on your own:
GENERIC DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Mystery / Crime / Suspense Thrillers
1. Talk about the characters, both good and bad. Describe their personalities and motivations. Are they fully developed and emotionally complex? Or are they flat, one-dimensional heroes and villains?
2. What do you know...and when do you know it? At what point in the book do you begin to piece together what happened?
3. Good crime writers embed hidden clues in plain sight, slipping them in casually, almost in passing. Did you pick them out, or were you...clueless? Once you've finished the book, go back to locate the clues hidden in plain sight. How skillful was the author in burying them?
4. Good crime writers also tease us with red-herrings—false clues—to purposely lead readers astray? Does your author try to throw you off track? If so, were you tripped up?
5. Talk about the twists & turns—those surprising plot developments that throw everything you think you've figured out into disarray.
- Do they enhance the story, add complexity, and build suspense?
- Are they plausible or implausible?
- Do they feel forced and gratuitous—inserted merely to extend the story?
6. Does the author ratchet up the suspense? Did you find yourself anxious—quickly turning pages to learn what happened? A what point does the suspense start to build? Where does it climax...then perhaps start rising again?
7. A good ending is essential in any mystery or crime thriller: it should ease up on tension, answer questions, and tidy up loose ends. Does the ending accomplish those goals?
- Is the conclusion probable or believable?
- Is it organic, growing out of clues previously laid out by the author (see Question 3)?
- Or does the ending come out of the blue, feeling forced or tacked-on?
- Perhaps it's too predictable.
- Can you envision a different or better ending?
8. Are there certain passages in the book—ideas, descriptions, or dialogue—that you found interesting or revealing...or that somehow struck you? What lines, if any, made you stop and think?
9. Overall, does the book satisfy? Does it live up to the standards of a good crime story or suspense thriller? Why or why not?
(Generic Mystery Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)