Both use the same before and now time shifts and leave the reader guessing not only who the murderer is – there are multiple candidates – but also the identity of the victim. I will continue to read Lucy Foley and am really excited to pick up her most recent book.This novel is very similar in structure to The Guest List, Foley’s later book (which I reviewed last year) so it’s hard not to make comparisons. I read it is one day, finishing it pretty late that night because I was not going to be able to go to sleep until I finished the story. I generally found this book compulsively readable.

I loved seeing these relationships slowly unfold, and get to see the different ways these people were connected and how these relationships became more and more complicated over time. I always love a book about obsessive friendships, it is just one of my absolute favorite themes to be explored. These people are far more likely to be the victim of violent crime, but in fiction, they are very often the perpetrator. I don' think that Foley wrote the most harmful version of this trope, but I do think this is a trope that perpetuates untrue assumptions about folks with mental illness, especially things like borderline personality disorder or 'antisocial' disorders in general. One aspect of the book I didn't love was that the killer was someone with a mental illness. Even when I was sure I knew what was coming, I was still really excited to see how the other characters were going to finally figure it out with me. I was very happy to have guessed two of the really big reveals pretty early in the book, but Foley had plenty of red herrings to make me second guess myself while I was reading. I really love the balance of how many things were easy for the reader to guess and how many were more obfuscated. She does an excellent job giving the reader enough information to begin putting clues together before the characters do. I love the way Foley writes plot reveals. I find this incredibly engaging and it really keeps the pace of the story very fast, even in the earliest chapters.

She is engaging in this really fascinating game with the reader playing the expectations of each character archetype against the reader at times. Play with reader expectations of how the book is going to unfold. I really love the way Foley uses character tropes as both a quick way to provide characterization and to The Hunting Party follows a group of friends on a three or four-day New Years' trip to a remote lodge in Scotland. I specifically love the way Foley uses character archetypes so incredibly deftly. It has most of my very favorite mystery tropes and some of my favorite tropes in general. I read this book in basically one obsessive swoop.

The hunting party novel