We’re halfway through the book before we learn the gender of the victim, and in the final couple of chapters before we find out who it is (and, despite the anticipation, it’s all a bit too obvious in the end anyway). Although we’re told in the first couple of pages that one of the guests has died, Foley is very reluctant to actually tell us anything. The central issue with the book is that it goes to great lengths to hold back on the identity of the victim. It means that The Hunting Party can’t really function as a mystery – there are clues and red herrings aplenty, but these fail to land when you don’t know what mystery you’re trying to solve, and the eventual reveal is simply that someone saw the crime being committed It’s also split between two time periods, with the first three perspectives narrating the story prior to the murder, and the latter two its immediate aftermath.

The Hunting Party is presented through the perspectives of five of the characters – Katie, Emma and Miranda of the party, and Doug and Heather of the hotel staff. In order to properly explain, I need to break down the confusing structure of the book. That plot description makes this book sound like a whodunit, and it’s been marketed as a thriller, but it’s not really either. Entirely cut off from the outside, the group and the estate staff know that one of them must be the guilty party, but who is it? As the weather worsens, relations between the group begin to fracture – nostalgic ties and fake smiles soon give way to secret resentments, and soon someone on the estate is dead. They arrive at the end of December, just before an historic blizzard seals the lodge off from the outside world. Just before New Year’s Eve, a group of old university friends head to an isolated estate in the Scottish Highlands for their annual getaway. It boasts a strong sense of place and engaging characters, but the presentation choices really lessen the story’s impact.

How do you seed the story, playing fair with your reader without giving too much away, and hold their attention throughout? I was thinking about this a lot after reading Lucy Foley’s debut crime novel, 2019’s The Hunting Party, because it tries something different and doesn’t quite land it.

The hunting party lucy foley