The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley

• an annual New Year's Eve getaway
• an isolated estate in the Scottish Highlands
• a group of old college friends
• a historic blizzard
• an unexpected death
• a murderer among them

Last line of the novel:

"Perhaps it's time to make some new friends."

I was instantly drawn to the premise and the setting of this book. It's like one of those locked-room mysteries I always love, except this group of friends is snowed-in at a remote estate instead. And then, when Melody said she wanted to read it, too, I was even more excited. But sadly, it didn't end up being quite as suspenseful or compelling as I hoped. And that's mostly because of the way it's told.

Foley uses five different narrators to tell the story:  Heather, the manager of the lodge, Doug, the taciturn gamekeeper, and Emma, Katie and Miranda, three of the Oxford friends meeting up for their traditional New Year's weekend together. She also writes in first person present tense (except, oddly, for Doug's chapters), which means the first half of the story ends up being more inner monologue and angst than action. For me, the multiple POVs really slowed the pacing and made it hard to connect to any of the characters. I ended up not liking most of them. (Except for Doug.) After the first 140 pages, though, the story does pick up. And the ending is actually pretty intense.

As the book begins, you know upfront that one of the guests has been killed, you just don't know who. Which means you spend the bulk of the novel trying to figure out who among the nine is going to die and why. I guessed early on which character was going to be murdered. I also wasn't completely surprised by the murderer's identity (mostly because some of the other characters were pretty easy to eliminate). There were a few additional revelations at the end of the book that were pretty surprising though, with one last twist that was especially compelling. So, this novel definitely ended better than it began. But for me, it was still only a 3-star read. 

Even though this one wasn't quite as good as I'd hoped going in, doing a buddy read with Melody is always a lot of fun. Be sure to check out her awesome review and see what she thought of this snowed-in mystery.

Happy Reading!

P.S. Here are Melody's questions regarding this book...and my answers:

Q. All the friends in the group have gathered together for the New Year's celebrations before, what makes you think that this time is different and what really triggered the bond among them?
A. The more I got to know these nine friends, the more I wondered why they were still getting together at all, because they didn't seem to like each other very much. It was clear that they'd grown apart over the years. And I felt like they were all trying to hold onto something that just didn't exist any more. Why it all fell apart this particular weekend I don't really know, but I think it had been coming on for awhile.

Q. Like Doug or Heather, would you consider taking a job which allowed you minimal contact with the outside world? Why or why not?
A. Yes! There are a lot of remote locations (like the setting of this book) where I could see myself happily spending a year, especially if I was getting paid to do it. (And if I had a lot of good books to read!) But if it was for longer than a year, I think I'd start to go stir crazy, missing my family and friends and normal life. But for a year? I'd totally do it. Just for the experience of it. 

Bookish thrills and chills...

Title:  1222 by Anne Holt
First line:  As it was only the train driver who died, you couldn't call it a disaster.
Summary from the blurb:  "A train on its way to the northern reaches of Norway derails during a massive blizzard, 1222 meters above sea level. The passengers abandon the train for a nearby hotel, centuries-old and practically empty, except for the staff. With plenty of food and shelter from the storm, the passengers think they are safe, until one of them is found dead the next morning."  Paralyzed by a bullet, retired police inspector Hanne Wilhemsen is among the rescued passengers. And when old instincts kick in, she can't help investigating her fellow passengers. But time is running out. "Trapped in her wheelchair, trapped by the storm, and now trapped with a killer, Hanne must fit the pieces of the puzzle together before the killer strikes again."

My thoughts:  It was the whole trapped-in-a-snowstorm setting that drew me to this Norwegian mystery. I blame my fascination with bookish blizzards on having read The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder so many times as a child. And this locked-room murder mystery is a pretty good read. At times, especially when the murderer is revealed at the end, it reminded me of an Agatha Christie novel. Holt creates some great characters. although it took me several pages before I started to warm up to Hanne, who's a very distant and guarded woman. Adrian, a fifteen-year-old teenage runaway with a sullen disposition and a penchant for angry outbursts was my favorite character; he reluctantly helps Hanne with her investigation. My only real complaint is that for a supposed thriller, 1222 is actually a pretty slow read. I blame that on the first-person narrative. Don't get me wrong, it's an interesting mystery, but I wouldn't call it a fast-paced page turner. Personally, I prefer the mysteries of Kristina Ohlsson and Yrsa Sigurdardottir to this one.

Happy Reading!