The Hunting Party

by Lucy Foley

[ibeforem]

The Hunting Party is about an ill-fated annual New Year's trip taken by a group of 9 friends - four couples and a singleton. Since Miranda is the queen bee of the group, it might be easiest to explain who everyone is related to her:

Miranda and Julien (her husband)
Mark (used to be obsessed with Miranda) and his girlfriend, Emma (the trip organizer)
Samira (Miranda's "fun" best friend) and her husband Giles (and they have a baby with them)
Nick (the gay friend) and his husband Bo
Katie (Miranda's "serious" best friend)

All of them except Emma, Giles, and Bo have been friends since university or before, and have taken many of these New Year's jaunts together. But never in a place as unusual as the isolated estate in the Scottish Highlands. They discover that they are going to be hours from civilization, with hardly a working cell signal. Not something these metropolitan friends are particularly used to. But Emma has an elegant experience planned for them all -- until things start going wrong.

First, it seems like some of them are a little out of sorts. The passage of time and life has maybe meant that they are not as open with each other as they used to be. Then, they discover that they are not going to be the only visitors to the estate -- a strange Icelandic couple is also there. A snowstorm rolls in, further isolating the estate. The New Year's Eve party gets a little wild. And then -- a body is found.

You actually find out about the body very early in the story, but you don't know who it is or even what their gender is. The story alternates between the present, as they wait for the police to make it through the snowstorm, and the past 3 days. The present chapters are seen through the eyes of Heather, the manager of the estate, which helps to keep things a mystery.

Overall I thought this was an entertaining story, and I found that I was surprised by the twists and turns. I sort of had an idea of what the overall story of the estate was, but I wasn't quite right. I think it's a pretty solid "closed-door" mystery/thrill.