A cast of unlikable characters marooned in a remote location by snow, what could possibly go wrong ?
Plenty of red herrings, twists and turns to keep you guessing. An atmospheric and well written read.

For me this book is both a hit and a miss. Essentially you know that someone has died / been killed from about 3 chapters in. The thrill - if it is truly there is in deciding which of the characters have been involved. The narrative swings between the here and now (from the death onwards) and 3 days ago (before the death). Essentially it is an unravelling of the history of the people involved. All seem to have something to hide, all seem to have culpability of a sort. The biggest secret is the identity of the victim.

For me this is what the author does most successfully it could be any of the guests, the possibilities are reduced as the narrative progresses but it really is only towards the end that the picture becomes clear.

Less winning is the characterisation - there are two groups the Oxford coterie are carved from the same stones, self opinionated, self-interested, too much money and no real common sense and the staff are a second band of staff all have deep dark secrets.

I liked it but didn't love it

A Whodunnit, with the added intrigue of who has actually been murdered. A group of thirty something Londoners head North to a remote area in Scotland for New Year celebrations and become trapped by heavy snowfall. It was a story with plenty of intrigue but I couldn't really warm to any of the characters, who seemed a self centred lot. I also wasn't keen on the fact that the identity of the victim wasn't revealed until close to the end of the book. A decent read but not entirely my cup of tea.

To celebrate New Years Eve a few days getaway to the remote scottish highlands is arranged by a group of old university friends.
Being thrown together after a long time apart it seems the bond of friendship is nowhere near as strong as they had all believed.
Old resentments and grudges from the past resurface and when they find themselves cut off from the outside due to heavy snows the celebrations turn sour as secrets and lies are revealed.
A body is discovered by the groundsman.
Gradually the identity is revealed, suspects abound. It seems anyone of the guests could be the killer.
The suspense builds nicely and kept me guessing all the way through.
A host of interesting if not likeable characters populate this story and anyone of them seems capable of murder.
Thanks to Netgalley and Harper Collins for the chance to read this as an ARC.

I loved this twisty tale and couldn't put it down. Loved the setting and atmosphere. It kept me guessing to the end. I would highly recommend it to folks who like this type of mystery.

Full of secrets and intrigue this was right up my street! A classic whodunnit I was hooked from the first paragraph! Loved reading from all of the characters perspectives too.

This book!!! As soon as I finished it I messaged a friend to say "You have GOT to order this book NOW!" Isn't it wonderful when you read a book and know exactly who to recommend it to! If you love character driven, Agatha Christie-esque mysteries set in atmospheric, eerie locations then The Hunting Party is going to knock your socks off. It reminded me in a way of Ruth Wares debut "In A Dark Dark Wood" but with more champagne and drugs! When you throw together a cast of unlikeable people like this bunch then sparks are guaranteed to fly but when a body is discovered it's a shock that nobody is expecting. You must put aside a few hours to read this because once you join The Hunting Party you won't be leaving until after the kill!
As with all the best psychological thrillers, there is a slow build up whilst we are introduced to this rather unappealing and self absorbed group of university friends as they make their way to Scotland to celebrate New Year together. It takes a while to work out their connections to each other (Mark and Nick I got confused with to begin with but that's probably just me!) but once they were settled into their isolated cabins at the lodge where they were staying, it was much easier to recognise the different personalities. Miranda was a particularly unlikeable member of the group and I found her attitude towards her oldest friends completely baffling!
Told by multiple POVs and in different timelines it isn't until quite near the end that we find out who has been murdered, why and by whom. But I have to say that the twists and turns really did pull me in so many different directions that, although I thought I knew what was happening and why, I was much further off the mark than I usually am! And that's another reason why I absolutely loved this book! It's a fascinating look at how the toxic relationships we make can't be easily escaped as they become a habit that's much too hard to break. But the breakup here is VERY extreme indeed!
If you're after a gripping, character based and darkly atmospheric storyline then The Hunting Party is a must for your TBR pile. This one is going to be HUGE!
Highly recommended by me!

I enjoyed this book it was a bit different to anything I have read recently.I did struggle to cope with all the characters in the beginning but once I had them sorted in my mind I got into the story, I thought the atmosphere of the place was perfectly captured,and the pace of the book was good.I did work out who the victim was but had no idea who the killer was,and the other subplots were interesting too.There was plenty going on,and this was an entertaining and well written book.I enjoyed it.thanks to the publishers and netgalley for an ARC.

15% in and I got bored let's get back to whose body it is, I'm not keen on books that have chapters from all the different characters view points. This one does not move quick enough for me.

Thirteen people, 1 dead body

3.5 stars for the thriller debut Hunting Party by Lucy Foley.

A group of friends who met at Oxford a decade ago decides to celebrate NYE in a remote location in the Scottish Highlands. Due to the heavy snow they find themselves cut off from civilisation. We quickly learn that the friendship bond between some of them is not as strong as it seemed and actually there is a degree of animosity and resentment among them as old wounds and grudges from their past resurface. I started to wonder why would anyone want do an annual trip with people they didn't like?

"But that's the thing about old friends, isn't it? Sometimes they don't even realise that they no longer have anything in common. That maybe they don't even like each other any more."

Initially, it took me some time to get into this and get a grip on who was who, but once I got there, I enjoyed the book. Each chapter is told from a different POV - Emma, Katie, Miranda, Heather and Doug with the timeline jumping from 'Before the murder' and 'After'. It is not clear who has been murdered and who the murderer is until relatively late in the story which is not a bad thing. I thought I knew where the book was going and who the culprit was, but I was completely wrong. I did not see the twist coming at all.

The synopsis mentions Agatha Christie. I love Christie's books dearly and would like to clarify that apart from the obvious setting resemblence to the Mousetrap, this is quite a different type of novel. Still a good one, just different.

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

It felt like ploughing through treacle to get to the end of this book. I wasn’t keen on any of the characters nor was I interested in their New Years histories.
Not for me I’m afraid.

Excellent thriller, almost Agatha Christie like in style, but with a more modern twist.

The setting is very atmospheric and the backgrounds and personalities of the characters are well drawn. Difficult to find much empathy for any of the travelling party. I did though find myself rooting for Doug and Heather, the staff members who are fighting their own demons whilst having to cope with the demanding and dislikeable group of customers.

An excellent read that pulled me in.

Thank you to the author, Harper Collins and Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for my honest review.

What a terrible bunch of people (for the most part) and what fun reading their car crash of a new years getaway: with their terrible secrets and murderous tendencies! The novel is dual time perspective, though not difficult to follow, which lends a constant buzz of "what's round the corner?" and there were a few times I was properly creeped out. Overall, a fiendish thriller, in a remote location, with characters you'll love to hate but be desperate to follow.

I got about a quarter of the way through this book before realising that I couldn’t stand a single character, nor did I care for the events and skimmed my way to the end.

Honestly I think I identified more with Emma, than any of the other stuck up and cruel characters. I think I’ve been her - to a lesser degree - I’ve never killed anybody. But then I grew up and realised that friends who make you feel like crap - aren’t friends.

Sorry but I really struggled to get into this book. The writing didn’t grab me, and my apathy towards the whole thing has led me to discontinue reading it. Apologies but this one was not for me.

Thank you to Lucy Foley, HarperCollins UK, and NetGalley for an arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

If you love intriguing crime stories with plenty of unexpected twists and turns and a captivating, storyline that will have you burning the midnight oil to find out more, then this is for you. I absolutely loved it. The chilly Highland scenery, the friends with hidden secrets, the well developed, dark and mysterious characters and the beautiful, seamless way in which it is written.

Although the crime takes place early on, the gradual unravelling helps maintain a high level of suspense until the end. We are kept in the dark for quite some time about the gender, never mind identity of the victim. Suspicion gets thrown on one person after another. Definitely shades of Agatha Christie here.

It makes these friends question just how well they really know those who have been a large part of their lives since university. Because people are rarely what they seem on the surface. At least not here. Despite their preordained roles and seemingly fixed characters in times past.

A lot of tension sits close to the surface, as they gather at a Hunting Lodge for a New Year celebration and assume an air of jollity that doesn’t always ring true. Old rivalries and injured feelings, resentment and jealousy make this a less than joyful gathering, especially with a murder thrown into the mix.

Grudges have a way of coming out, as a snow blizzard temporarily encloses the guests from the world and creates an atmosphere of its own. Those who run the Lodge are also keeping secrets at bay. Ones that threaten to derail them just as much as the crime itself. A gripping, unpredictable and unputdownable read, revealing much about the vagaries of human nature and the horrors it can elicit.

What a fabulous page-turner!

I was already hooked once I had read the description of the book: a group of nine friends go to the Scottish Highlands for a New Years Eve celebration at a luxury lodge...but one isn't going home with them. The freezing and isolated conditions set a brilliant backdrop for this thriller.

Told in two time periods - the present in which we are told a guest has died and a period from two days prior, so we get to know the dynamic of the group. But which guests has died and who did the deed and why? Cleverly written, the reader must work everything out ahead of the reveal. The twists and turns were great in that they were possible to work out but weren't obvious.

Once I'd started this, I couldn't stop so make sure you have time to read it! The one downside is that it's not being released before Christmas/NYE so I can't give this as a gift. It would work so well!

Highly recommended.

Many thanks to NetGalley, HarperCollins UK Harper Fiction and Lucy Foley for a copy of this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A group of friends decide to meet up and let the New year in together in a remote part of Scotland. What they didn't expect was for someone to get murdered while they were there.

You know from the beginning that a guest has gone missing but you don't learn until the end who it is and why.they were killed.
After reading the blurb of this book I was so looking forward to it. I love a gripping thriller with twists and turns but I'm afraid for me, it just didn't cut it. I really struggled to continue reading it. I'm sure there will be many who will enjoy it, just not me, which is why I can only give it three stars. This is my honest and unbiased review. My grateful thanks to NetGalley for my copy

An atmospheric thriller that had many intriguing storylines running through it. The concept of a group of people isolated, alone and trapped because of outside conditions, is the perfect setting for this mystery/whodunit. In an unusual twist, the victim was not identified until near the end. I was kept guessing who was the victim and who was responsible until the reveal, as there were so many possible scenarios. Very cleverly written.

‘We know everything there is to know about one another.’

A group of thirty-something Londoners, friends since their time at Oxford University, meet up and travel to a remote Scottish lodge in the Highlands for their annual New Year reunion. One of them dies. But who is the murderer? And, actually, who is it that is dead? Think Donna Tartt’s ‘Secret History’ meets Agatha Christie meets ‘The Shining’ meets Christopher Brookmyre (without the humour) – this is a grand old-fashioned murder mystery with a modern twist, and enough suspects to keep you guessing until the final reveal.

The author makes use of shifting narrative perspectives, alternating chapters between three of the main female protagonists (self-proclaimed queen of the group Miranda, her dowdy best friend Katie, and newcomer Emma) and the two main characters running the lodge (Doug, an ex-Marine suffering from PTSD, and Heather, still traumatised by losing her fireman partner in a house fire). Anyone who has a group of close friends will quickly identify with one or more member of the varied group who, over time, have married off and changed, yet still easily fall back into the roles with which the group dynamics have left them. It is a book about secrets and lies, about fracturing friendships and about moving on from the past. Foley throws in horror motifs aplenty: there are dangerous poachers lurking in the background, there is talk of the Highland Ripper who has been stalking the area for months, and there is of course the isolation and the silence, compounded by a blizzard which cuts the guests and staff off for days without outside help.

This is an excellent page-turner which will keep most readers entertained and desperate to race to the end to find out not only who died (we don’t even know if the victim is male or female until half-way through) but also whodunnit. Be warned: do NOT start this late in the evening or you may well find yourself sitting up until 3am trying to finish it. That in itself tells me that this works as a novel, because you do find yourself caring about the characters (despite their general selfishness and shallowness) and the developing story just drags you in. A thoroughly enjoyable read which, as at least one other reviewer has pointed out, will very much lend itself to a Sunday night TV series or film. Definitely recommended.

(With thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC in return for an honest and unbiased review.)

A virtuoso performance, the HUNTING PARTY delivers on more levels than I can. It's a gripping read, chills, thrills and spills aplenty. But for all it's pace and gasp-inducing twists, there is also a satisfying depth to the piece as a whole. Ms Foley has a lot to say about friendship, love and loyalty and how all of these do (or don't) rise to the challenges of passing time.

What I loved most was how character-centric this novel is. This is a psychological novel not just in the currently corrupted use of the term, but it in the original meaning of a novel offering tremendous insights into the way people are inside their own heads and how this drives their actions in the wider world. Each of the characters is so beautifully rendered that you can almost forget they aren't actually *your* uni set, and you aren't actually in the remote Highland lodge with them at all. They are an ensemble cast - not easy to deliver on the page at the best of times - and yet we get to know them all very well. Indeed, better than they know each other, and in one or two cases, even themselves. What's so pleasing about this is that as things begin to unravel left, right and centre, nothing has to slow down to be explained. The reader is already in full possession of what they need to think, Oh, but, of course...!

Although there is nothing supernatural about this book, the fact that they are stuck in an idyllic place cut off by the snow made me think of this as The Big Chill meets the Shining.

This is going to be a global bestseller and major film/TV series, or I'll eat my deer-stalker.