Lockdown Book Review: The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley
Mellissa Bushby is one of our content contributors during the 21 days of lockdown in the column “Booked during lockdown with Jess and other bookworms”. In this blog post this reader extraordinaire reviews The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley. #LockdownSouthAfrica #LockdownFor21Days #Review #ATrioOfHobbyists
I’m a huge fan of the locked room sort of mystery, Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None being my favourite. Atmospheric and in parts beautifully written, Foley brings the stark beauty of the wild Scottish countryside to life, you can feel the icy wind and the chill mirrored surface of the loch eating away at your bones, and the feeling of being watched by something ancient and silent is often there.
The Hunting Party is all about a group of university friends, some who go even further back, and their annual New Year’s Eve get-together, this year at the exclusive and remote lodge next to the loch. Throw a group of friends, each with their own hidden agendas and resentments together, add a bit too much champagne and see what happens…
In this case, nothing good. To spice things up a bit we have the distant and mysterious gamekeeper, who has a few secrets of his own. I found most of the characters weak and shallow, and one or two of them truly dreadful, but then I think that that was rather the point.
ALSO READ: An Introduction to Board Gaming
There are a few twists and turns, and while I saw certain things coming a mile away, the ending came as a bit of a surprise. Everyone is hiding something, and very few members of this group are what they seem to be.
The weekend starts off well with festivities and fun, but soon starts to fracture as the cracks begin to show. A snowfall causes the lodge to become completely cut off from civilisation, and on New Year’s morning a body is found.
