Dull.... The characters are so much alike each other you're hard pushed to tell them apart ( even though each chapter is named after one of them). One of the most beautiful places on the planet described in such a way that strips it all down to almost nothing but grim, cold and eyeball deep in snow. The prose are almost headache inducing, rushing by at a thousand miles an hour and much of it to no consequence at all. Maybe it's just not my cup of tea however I've read plenty of books in a similar vein that didn't make me feel as though I was front and center at an eight hour insurance convention. Each to their own though..... You may well love it. I certainly didn't.

As soon as I saw the blurb I knew I had to read this, had a really different sound to it than the other crime / mystery books out there.

The main story is that a group of university friends take a holiday every year to bring in the new year together. This year Emma, a relative newcomer as she is the girlfriend of one of the uni friends, has organised the retreat in the scottish highlands. We start off the book with her POV and I was pleasantly surprised to see that the POV switched around to focus on other characters as well (though not all). Of course it isn't long before you realise there are a lot of secrets and resentments within the group and then one of the group gets murdered, but who is the culprit?

Although revealed early on, the actual murder actually happens quite far into the book, with the set up to it being a lot more interesting as events happen slowly unwind, mysterious strangers arrive and you can see the internal struggles within the group. It's really a slow burner and I did get a bit impatient waiting for things to start moving.

The characters in the book are not all very likeable but I think this is the point and I really loved having the different POVs, one character in particular who I started off hating by the end and thanks to reading their chapters I really grew to like them. A small negative for me is that some of the group members were not fleshed out at all and didn't really serve much purpose than to make up the numbers, I would have liked to see their POVs as well but understand this would have really lengthened the book!

The twist reveals and the murderer reveal were extremely well done, and kept me guessing right to the end. I was so absorbed with finding out what happened that I had to finish the book in one night and I really wasn't disappointed.

A brilliant read and look forward to reading more from Lucy Foley!

I found this a really good read. It is set in a remote Highland estate with a small number of characters but the flashbacks used to explain the situation are very effective. The characters are true to their personalities and their behaviours are consistent, making the reader feel they know them.
The story begins as a superficial New Year holiday plan and gets darker and darker as the days progress. There is a "whodunit" element which provides the twist as the story reaches the conclusion.
I read it over a couple of days and really enjoyed it. I recommend it!

This was an interesting story that told the tale by moving back and forth over the Millenium weekend. The characters’ personalities became more obvious as the book progressed, leading to a grisly discovery. Fascinating reading and recommended.

I enjoyed this murder mystery very much indeed. A group of nine friends are booked into a luxury highland lodge for New Year, far from any form of civilisation. The narrative is from four different points of view: Doug the gamekeeper, Emma the organiser of the holiday,, the glamorous Miranda and Katie her best friend. As in all groups of friends there are tensions and jealousies and these become ever more apparent as the story develops with bitchy remarks, backstabbing and infidelity. Everyone it seems has their secrets and these have an effect on the group dynamic. Over the course of the holiday, their behaviour deteriorates with drunkenness, violence and drug taking all around. It ends in tears - of course it does - with one group member ending up dead. There are plenty of suspects in this story, not one of them appears to be a well balanced adult. They all, including the staff, have their issues. Unusually the author keeps the identity of the victim hidden until almost the end and this helps to build the tension because as well as many of them having the personality and motives of a murderer, several also seem to be courting violence. There were one or two issues I wasn't sure about, leading to a four star rather than five star review. The Icelandic couple intruding on the group didn't seem to add much and the Old Lodge although atmospheric, similarly didn't benefit the story. It was good enough without these two distractions.. The author does a terrific job in building up the tension throughout. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.

Have I just read a forgotten and lost Agatha Christie classic? OMG that's how I felt during it and after and still now. Boy the atmosphere is carefully constructed and evoked here with style and an eye for detail and nuances that I haven't read in a while.

The setting might be fictional in name but it's evoked with such style it seems so very very real. Adn spookily claustrophobic too. The setting is ideal for the old school mystery which follows - hunting, deers in the park, a group of people staying at a lodge, Scottish fog and ...murder

It's the relationships between these characters which made me rub my hands in glee. At one point I almost went out to buy a glass of something even though I don't drink or shoot a dear which I could never do since watching Bambi. I will just have to settle for wearing tartan.

I said it reminded me of Christie. That's not to say it's similar or not unique - far from it - it just brings back all what I love about an old fashioned good old murder mystery and a sense of writing and style that is beautiful to take your time over.

I was never quite sure where this was going and was kept on my toes throughout, in the gloomy corridors, the ghostly shadows of the trees, the fog and the strange noises at night.

Deliciously deadly and dark. Foley fantastic you might say.

A group of friends who met and university – and partners – have a tradition of taking a holiday together. Emma, reasonably new to the group, has organised a stay in an out-of-the-way hunting lodge in the Scottish highlands. We learn early on that a body is found but we don’t know who, until much later. Or who was the killer. The book isn’t for people who want fast action. It concentrates on the backgrounds of the people, their present and previous interactions and the backstories of the three people who work at the lodge. For me, it worked because of the pressure-cooker feeling of isolation from the world. There was a heavy snowfall and they were cut off. The characters were not particularly likeable but their backgrounds went some way to explaining this. I enjoyed the read very much and felt I had the bystander’s view of a car crash at times. Really good stuff.

I was really impressed with this debut novel. The Hunting Party drops us right in on a group of seemingly perfect, privileged friends from Oxford. They are, for the most part, unlikeable and spoiled, enjoying a remote trip at an exclusive Scottish lodge for New Year's Eve. Although I wasn't completely fooled by all the red herrings, I was suitably satisfied by the 'whodunnit' nature of this book and it certainly kept me guessing. The author makes good use of the 'everyone's a suspect' style, expanding the narrative slowly to keep the reader curious and engaged. Although it is bound to happen with a cast of characters this large, I did feel that a few members of the party were only background noise and not much to do except in the thinnest sense in the overall story. I did really enjoy the final twist though, including the careful planning and lifelong obsession of the killer as finally revealed. The Old Lodge subplot could maybe have been discarded, I didn't feel it added anything significant except for a moment of peril. A real page turner of a debut, from an author who will probably only get better with time.

Many thanks to Netgalley, Lucy Foley and Harper Collins UK for allowing me to receive a advanced reading copy!

I have mixed thoughts on The Hunting Party, as a whole I enjoyed the story line but I had major issues with the characters, I struggled to like and care for even one of them. I am not saying that other readers will not enjoy this book and the characters but for me I was unable to connect.
I read this book over 5 days as I just couldn't connect as much as I wished.
This sounds all very negative but please don't be too put off, the great thing about the book reading community is that no 2 people will have the same thoughts on a book.

I did quite enjoy the twist at the end and also as a surprise I actually didn't figure out who the killer was until it was revealed right at the very end of the book.
I usually am able to suss it out, but at least in this book it had me guessing.

3 Stars for me as I feel in order to connect with a book you have to connect with a character.

I really enjoyed this. The story is cleverly told through the eyes of various characters and as the victim is not revealed til the end I was trying to figure out who was the murderer and who was the victim! I found this intriguing because all the characters had reasons or personality traits which could easily have made them either of the two. A great read.

loved this.

Properly atmospheric, the chilly, claustrophobic yet open setting cleverly sets the scene for a wonderfully old school murder mystery, with a stellar cast of characters for the reader to get their teeth into and either love or loathe.

Descriptively this is beautifully written the aforementioned setting coming to vivid and gorgeous life, enter into this wild landscape a group of friends whose history and random hidden jealousies rise to the surface, ultimately leading to murder…

Definite hints of Christie, but with a rhyme and rythym all of its own, The Hunting Party is a dream of a read, absorbing, intelligent and full of the vagaries of human nature. Twisty as you like, unexpectedly sometimes, Lucy Foley manages the group dynamic with aplomb, keeping you immersed and involved all the way.

A proper bit of storytelling, eliciting differing emotional reactions and having the benefit of being eminently unpredictable, The Hunting Party is definitely one to watch in 2019.

Highly recommended.

I’ve mixed views on “The Hunting Party” - on the one hand the sense of tension engendered by the switching character perspectives, timeline and “whodidwhattowho” meant that i raced through the book in about 24 hours (helped slightly by the poor weather), keen to follow the twisty-turns of the plot and find out what had happened and which of the characters were motivated to act and why. On the ther hand, the different perspectives and timelines felt forced and mannered and i was unable to just accept their inner narrative and instead kept asking who the characters were addressing and why in these present tense monologues, particularly when drunk or high - describing in perfect clarity the fact that they are too drunk to process for instance. It took me out of the moment, as did the deliberately obfuscatory descriptions in the sections set later in the timeline, where the choice of words used only makes sense from a plot perspectuve (masking what’s been discovered) rather than a character perspective. For me, such flips between time periods work better if those ‘investigating’ what has happened reveal what they discover when they discover it, not clumsily half reveal and half hide it to draw out the tension.

The most interesting aspects of the characters only really come out in the closing stages of the book, in my mind more could have been made of the psychological conflict than happens here.

This all sounds terribly negative, and i did enjoy the book whilst being frustrated. I think it would be cracking light read in the middle of winter with the snow falling down and drink or two to allow a greater suspension of disbelief that i couldnt quite manage.

Not a book one can put down, until the end. We get all the characters' points of view, meaning that just as you think you know 'who did it' you don't!!

Would recommend to anyone who wants a 'good read'; and it would also be good as a dramatisation.

Fantastic Highland setting, and people are not always what they seem.

Oh for heaven's sake! I was supposed to be writing my own book! Instead I requested this one from NetGalley. Whoops not a word written all day. Thanks so much Lucy Foley! A group of university friends celebrating the New Year in a remote Scottish hunting lodge. Then they are snowed in. Plenty of booze mixed with egos and festering past resentments. What could possibly go wrong? This was a compelling and great read. It kept my attention from start to finish. Who was the killer? Who was the victim? Read it and find out. Fabulous.