A fairly enjoyable book which got better as it reached its climax. I did find it a little predictable in places.

A group of long-time friends are honouring their tradition and spending New Year’s Eve together. This year Emma, a relative newbie to the group, has organised it all and the gang find themselves in a remote estate in the Scottish highlands. It soon becomes clear that all is not well among this group of friends and when a body is found, it becomes clear that there is a murderer in the midst.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an advanced read copy of this book in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.

The Hunting Party is the debut crime thriller by Lucy Foley.

It involves a group of old friends meeting up for a New Year's holiday in a remote part of Scotland.

One of the party is missing in the New Year although who etc isn't confirmed until the end of the book.

The story is told from a number of characters' view points and at various times during the holiday.

Unfortunately I found the story a bit too one paced and nothing new. The chopping and changing of character and timeline didn't help either.

Overall not for me

This book! I absolutely loved it - although it was definitely torturing me not knowing anything about what was happening. So much is kept hidden in this book and it has an unbelievable amount of twists and surprises. I didn’t have a single theory about what was going to happen as I really had no idea. It takes a real genius to write a book like this. You find out that someone has been murdered (not a spoiler - as it says this on the blurb) but Lucy Foley makes you wait until much later in the book until you find out who was killed! This is the part that tortured me the most... but I loved it! I was reading this book in all of my spare time as I was desperate to finish it. I loved all of the characters in it and loved the chapters from their different points of view. All of them were really interesting and had very different personalities. Loved this one from Lucy Foley and will definitely be reading more from her in the future! Highly recommend this one!

The Hunting Party is a compelling thriller about a group of privileged university friends who meet up once a year to celebrate new year. Interesting characters and a twist towards the end makes this an excellent read.

This novel, tauted as an Agatha Christie-inspired thriller, follows a group of Oxford-educated friends who go to a remote lodge in the Scottish Highlands for New Year's. But something is off- not only about the isolated lodge, but about the group themselves. It has a huge cast of characters, though you only hear from four, and is heavy on the back-story, less so on the current action.

It is thrilling, there's no denying that. You get sucked into this book very easily with its 'fractured friendships' set-up and the quietly chaotic make-up of these awful people. None of them are very nice. Some redeem themselves by barely featuring throughout the book, though their back stories are mentioned a number of times. Foley writes with drama; each small move is calculated and explored, creating a riotous flame that burns slowly throughout the book until someone throws gasoline on it. It feels chaotic. It feels angry and passionate at once. Everyone is sleeping with each other, everyone has secrets, everyone has something to lose.

But then, as we get to the ending and the crucial climax of the book, it falls short of the finish line. I deducted it some stars for two main reasons. Firstly, its conclusion is utterly incredulous. With each page, more and more information is being revealed that's new- it's not set up in previous discussions or character thought, and slowly becomes ridiculous. A drug's bust is mentioned at the end of the book, after some 'mysterious packages' are found, yet nothing was ever said of that until a few pages previously. There's a constant mention of a 'Highland Ripper', yet it adds nothing to the narrative except an avenue that might be looked at (and is eventually not). It's as though Foley wanted to keep the drama up, so she threw in the classic soap-opera staples- someone's having an affair, someone's groped someone, everyone's drunk, someone's pregnant, someone's a psychopath stalker.

And here we come to my most significant grievance with this book. One of the characters is said to have a mental illness. A personality disorder is mentioned in a throw-away line. This is the reason for her insane actions which have led her to her stalking someone in the group of friends, to weedling her way into people she doesn't know. It irritates me beyond belief that just being 'mentally ill' is the reason for all of action in this book. Not only does the character NEVER show any other traits of having a personality disorder, but it feels like a reason to say 'look, here's the reason this person did all of this terrible stuff and the reason that someone died in the first place.' MENTAL ILLNESS IS NOT A PLOT DRIVER.

I thought I was going to give this book five stars. I really liked it at the start, but unfortunately, its third act was not put together well and almost ruined the novel entirely.

This is a story we have all heard before, but with a slight twist. A group of old Oxford buddies go to a Highland lodge in the middle of nowhere for New Year's Eve. And of course there is a terrible storm and they are cut off from the rest of the world; no help can reach them and there is no escape. One of them is murdered. The question is not only who killed them, but also who was killed?

Yes, the premise has been done many times before, but I still enjoyed this book and I really enjoyed the twist on it that you actually find out who the murdered and the murdered party are at the same time - right at the end.

The story is told from the point of view of quite a few different characters - through their own eyes, and at times from a third party perspective, as though they are looking down at themselves and trying to describe the scene.

There was a lot of connectivity between the different characters, a lot of shared history and also a lot of individual histories and agendas for the characters. Not only the rich guests at the lodge, but also the brooding gamekeeper and the quiet but pretty manager of the lodge. They all have their own reasons for being there, and of course they are all incredibly suspicious. But are they capable of murder? Yes, probably. But the Highland Ripper has also been on the loose, so perhaps none of them is the culprit. They could all be eventual victims.

This book was well written and enjoyable. Although it isn't original, it was a good story and I was kept guessing about who the murdered was until the end. I also really liked the depth of many of the different characters. The author is excellent at character development and these did feel like real people with believable problems and troubled pasts.

All in all it wasn't very tense or gripping, but I did really enjoy it all the way through. It's not exactly a thriller - more of a contemporary mystery.

Absolutely loved this book. Loved all the characters and the twists. Have just bought her first two books. Do not hesitate to read this. It’s amazing and well written and it will keep you guessing.
5/5 on goodreads

A great who dunnit murder mystery with some great characters, some you will love, some you will hate and others you will love & hate at the same time.

A group of university friends and their partners gather in the Scottish highlands for a New Years Eve they will never forget. There are seven friends at the start of the trip but by the end there are only six !!

The story is told from several different people’s view points in alternating chapters as well as some of the chapters being pre murder with others being post murder. Although this sounds like it would be quite complicated and hard to follow I actually found it really easy and it also adds to the story telling. Right up until near the end of the book we have no idea who the victim is !! So not only is the murderer a mystery the victim is also.

This was a really good read that will keep you on your toes and it had me guessing right up to the end. I changed my mind lots of times as more information is given. If you love murder mysteries then this is the book for you.

Thank you to HarperCollins UK and NetGalley for a digital copy of this book.

This is an assured debut, set in the Scottish Highlands. It's a brilliantly atmospheric, twisty and claustrophobic crime thriller - highly recommended!

An absolute stunner of a book: I was hooked from the first atmospheric page. I loved the snowy setting here, and the intrigue that ran through its pages. It kept me guessing all the way through, with an ending I couldn’t have seen coming. A brilliant read!

This is an excellent, well written thriller in the mould of an Agatha Christie "country house`' story. It's Christie up to date with google searches and modern twists. There are a few stereotypes but it doesn't detract too much from the enjoyable search for a killer. This is a book to curl up with on a winter's night with the doors locked and a cup of something warm. There is a lot of snow in Scotland...

I was given a copy of this book by Netgalley in return for an honest review.

This is a gripping murder-mystery set in an isolated Scottish highland wilderness.
A group of old friends meet for their annual New Year get together.
Cut-off from civilization, a murder takes place among the party and hidden tensions are revealed.
Lucy Foley's debut crime cleverly tells the story from the perspective of various members of the group and the two employees looking after them, leading to plenty of suspense and suspicion.

Nine friends, who met at Oxford University, reunite at a remote lodge in the Scottish Highlands to see in the New Year. They plan to spend four days partying and reminiscing. As the weather worsens, a heavy snowfall leaves them cut off from the outside world. They quickly learn the bond between them is far more fragile than any of them imagined. As tensions mount, old jealousies and long-hidden secrets begin to surface. Before the end of the holiday, one of them will be dead.

This is a highly enjoyable character-driven novel. It isn't a whodunnit in the traditional 'Agatha Christie' sense. Yes, it keeps you guessing and the twists and turns are plentiful, but the reader doesn't discover who the victim is until near the end of the book. I thought it was a welcome and unusual departure from the norm.

The reader is taken on a journey of evolution - from the friends' university days to the people they've become in adulthood. Admittedly some are given more airtime than others, but it was an aspect I thoroughly enjoyed. I loved the book's setting and it was this that initially attracted me - the remoteness, the bleakness, the worsening weather, the claustrophobia. It had all the elements I adore.

This is a hugely enjoyable modern version of a classic golden age crime novel, a psychological thriller with the Christie like tropes of a country house, only here we have a remote and desolate exclusive hunting lodge situated next to a loch in the bleak and forbidding wintry landscapes of the Scottish Highlands. There is a group of thirty something longstanding close friends from Oxford University, who for the last decade have always gathered together over the New Year period. It begins with New Year's Day 2019, when gamekeeper, Doug and lodge manager, Heather, discover a missing guest on the estate, it is inescapably clear that it is no accident and that a murder has been committed. Heavy and blustery snowstorms have cut the area off, and the police are unable to respond. Without revealing who the victim is until near the end, the narrative goes back and forth over the days since the group arrive, revealing that below the surface of the jollity and apparent closeness of the friends, lurk dark murky secrets, questions about the supposed friendships between them, and exposure of the deep fissures that lay hidden from view.

Emma, a relative newbie to the group, and girlfriend of Mark, has organised the hunting lodge for the gathering in her desperate efforts to fit in and be accepted into this long established group of privileged and entitled individuals. The beautiful, attention grabbing, and popular Miranda, with her good looking husband, Julien, are the enviable golden couple. Samira and Giles are the couple with a 6 month daughter, Priya, that curtails their previous ability to be the total party animals they used to be. Nick is gay, and has been in a long term relationship with his partner, American Bo, a man that has recovered from a history of drug addition. The reserved Katie, a high powered London lawyer, is the single one, with a history of being the closest friend of the glamorous Miranda since schooldays, but her career has meant that recently they have seen little of each other. Amidst the partying, binge drinking and drugs, secrets begin to emerge, lives unravel and the killer's identity slowly comes to be revealed.

Lucy Foley writes a chilling atmospheric crime mystery, laden with an air of menace, set in the most beautiful of locations, but which carrys its own dangers with freezing conditions and snow blizzards. As well as the Oxford group, there is the unexpected addition of two Icelanders at the lodge, Ingvar and Gudrun. Heather has past trauma that triggered the move to work in the most loneliest of places, and Doug, an ex-marine, still suffers from PTSD, leading him to seek the isolation of the estate as he cannot bear to be amongst other people. Foley provides us with a diverse cast of characters as suspects trapped on the estate, with many in the Oxford group not being particularly likeable human beings. This is a fabulously entertaining and riveting murder mystery that I am sure will appeal to many crime aficionados! Many thanks to HarperCollins for an ARC.

The cover image is great, really attention grabbing. It’s in the blurb that one of the party dies but what was cleverly done is that the identity of the deceased is kept hidden until close to the end of the book. We have chapters from multiple points of view and a timeline skipping between before and after the murder but it was actually easy to follow. There are a few ‘red herrings’ which kept me guessing about both the culprit and more unusually the victim. A cast of mostly dislikable characters and a remote picturesque setting. I could see this working well as a tv mini series.

I’ve been on the hunt for a great thriller ever since finishing up The Girl on the Train back in 2015. I don’t read thrillers to often, but the ones I’ve read lately have felt like a letdown. Enter The Hunting Party, a twisted tale of murder amongst friends in the Scottish highlands. I was hooked from the first page and was completely blown away. It is easily one of my favourite books of the year.

I don’t want to say too much about The Hunting Party because, well, it’s a thriller and it’s always best to go into these books knowing as little as possible. The thing that will stand out to most people is the fact that not only is the identity of the killer unknown, we don’t know who the victim is until the very end. The way that Foley artfully crafts the book around this fact is just so fantastically done. She creates an incredible level of tension throughout the narrative as characters’ pasts are dug up and their motivations questioned. The isolation in at the Lodge makes for an even more creepy atmosphere that feels like a throwback to the very best of Agatha Christie.

This is one of those books in which every character is despicable -- there are almost no good people in The Hunting Party and I absolutely loved it. Despite this fact, she still makes you care about each and every person’s point of view and drink down the deepest, darkest secrets. I can’t really say who my favourite characters were, but there are a few standouts that I think many readers will delight in reading about.

Foley has created a deliciously compulsive book that will have readers staying up late into the night. I cannot recommend this book more highly!

4.5/5 stars. This review will be posted closer to the publication date.

A great debut novel. The characters are all unlikeable which makes a refreshing change. An intriguing plot, full of excitement. Recommended

Book is really good, very well written BUT I feel like the blurb is a bit misleading. I thought there was going to be a murder and then a ton of chaos, accusations, drama with people not knowing who the killer is, BUT that was such a small element of it. The main story is literally about them meeting up for this getaway, the actual murder is about 5% of it. Also, it happens right at the end of the book and the killer is found out rather quickly. I spent the majority of the book wondering who was going to get murdered, rather than who the murderer actually is.

I really liked this book, it was kinda like a modern Agatha Christie tbh, a group of friends in an isolated place all harboring sinister feelings and tension, and basically, one dies, who was the murderer, you'll have to read it to find out lol

It was packed with red herrings along with lots of twists and turns and I didn't guess the culprit, which is a change for me haha!

A bloody good read, put your feet up and get it downloaded, you won't be disappointed

4 stars

A group of friends who met at uni, regularly go on holiday together.

At first, this book really gripped me and I couldn't put it down but the more that I read it, the more that I felt that I got to know the characters, the more I found myself putting the book aside to go and do something else.

I don't think that I liked anybody here.

I did love the fact that just as you think you know what is going on, you're soon shown that you actually have no idea at all.