Lucy Foley’s The Hunting Party tells the story of a group of old college friends getting together for a New Year’s celebration at a remote lodge in the Scottish Highlands. The group includes four couples (one with a baby in tow), and one single woman. The group largely orbits around the glamorous Miranda, but various members have their own histories and conflicts. There is a mysterious Icelandic couple staying at the lodge as well. As the old friends drink, celebrate, and reminisce, and snow starts to fall, isolating the lodge even further, tensions emerge, ultimately leading to the murder of one of the group (which one is not revealed until late in the book).
The chapters shift among various points of view, including three of the guests (Miranda, singleton Katie, and Emma, who has planned the trip and desperately wants everyone to have a good time) and two employees of the lodge, both of whom have their own troubled pasts. The central mystery was twisty and had a satisfying sense of all the pieces falling into place as things were revealed. As in any good mystery, not everyone is who they seem to be, and the characters’ actions are firmly grounded in their personal and shared histories. This is also a book where the setting is its own character, with the landscape and weather shaping events as they unfold.
Overall I really enjoyed this book. It was definitely a page turner and should appeal to fans of old-fashioned Agatha Christie style country house mysteries as well as those who prefer psychological thrillers. The audiobook version includes a different actor portraying each of the POV characters and was very well done.