The Hunting Party
A Novel
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3.8 • 185 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
“My favorite kind of whodunit, kept me guessing all the way through, and reminiscent of Agatha Christie at her best -- with an extra dose of acid.” -- Alex Michaelides, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Silent Patient
Everyone's invited...everyone's a suspect...
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.
The trip begins 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, just as a historic blizzard seals the lodge off from the outside world.
Two days later, on New Year’s Day, one of them is dead. . . and another of them did it.
Keep your friends close, the old adage says. But how close is too close?
DON'T BE LEFT OUT. JOIN THE PARTY NOW.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Historical novelist Foley (The Invitation) makes an auspicious thriller debut. Nine close friends, four of them couples, gather for their extravagant annual New Year's getaway this time at Loch Corrin, a remote estate in the Scottish Highlands a decade after most of them graduated from Oxford. Tensions, sexual and otherwise, first flare during the lengthy, alcohol-lubricated train trip from London on December 30, fanned by charismatic, capricious Miranda the golden girl most men want to be with and more than a few women long to become. At the Loch Corrin station, they're met by Doug, the estate's odd, though hunky, gamekeeper; at Loch Corrin, they encounter unexpected additional guests: a pair of strange Icelandic backpackers. Things start to go seriously wrong with the arrival of a blizzard that will soon cut off the 50,000-acre spread from the outside world. And then one of them disappears. 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.
Customer Reviews
Kept me interested for awhile
I like mysteries and this one starts with an interesting group of characters in an interesting location but half way through the story the characters begin to be a bit tiresome and I became aware of how the author was padding out the story with tedious details and actions around drinking too much. It was easy to guess who the victim and the murderer was so the convoluted device of going back and forth in time didn’t add much to the suspense.
The hunting party
Drags on and on, developing some of the too many characters, bouncing back and forth…., awkward time line and an oh so disappointing ending. Will not be reading any more from this author. Very disappointed.