The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley review

This book has some classic tropes attached to it. A group of friends that go on holiday together in which one of them is murdered and the killer is among them. Classic am I, right? However, it does manage to surprise you. Taking turns that you don’t see while delving into the characters’ story.

The most interesting part of reading this book was learning about the characters and taking a look at things from each of their perspectives. Another special thing about it is that you find yourself liking the characters that are not part of the main entourage. The story revolves around a group of old friends that are taking a trip together. This group of people used to all be close friends but later drifted apart as they got caught up with their adult lives. The book is told from the perspectives of Heather, Emma, Katie, Doug, and Miranda.

Each of these characters set the stage for the story with their unique personalities. We have Miranda the girl who peaked during her schooling days but failed later on in her adult life, Emma a new addition to the group who is a devoted follower of all things Miranda, Katie who considers herself a recluse and introverted by nature and is also Miranda’s best friend, Heather, who is fairly normal considering the others, and is the resorts Lodge-keeper, and finally we have Doug who is mysterious and has a shady past as well as being the Game-keeper of the lodge.

Well, that’s the spoiler-free review. Stop here if you haven’t read the book. Once you have come and see if you agree with my analysis of it.

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Let’s begin with Miranda. She is the only one who has no qualifications to speak of and is practically a housewife compared to the rest of her friends who all have successful careers. It is made apparent that this fact grates on her nerves and she tries to make up for it by playing the same girl that she used to be during her college days. She also is rather self-centered and one dimensional. She has little to no regard for her friends and doesn’t think twice about what she says. This plays rather well into the story as she manages to make an enemy out of everyone before she is murdered.

Emma is another interesting nugget and the author tackled her character rather well. From the beginning, it was apparent that Emma is rather obsessed with keeping up with Miranda. She even stated earlier in her narrative that she hopes to take up the Katie shaped hole in Miranda's life. Therefore, I didn’t find it surprising that she was revealed to be Miranda's stalker. What did surprise me is that she ends up murdering her obsession in a fit of rage. This probably could have been avoided if Miranda had managed to be a little less insulting to a legitimate psycho.

Katie kind of baffles me. She has so much potential but is so stuck in her bubble of inferiority to Miranda that it affects her into adulthood. This is even though she’s incredibly successful and is in a position of leadership in her workplace. She is aware of all this but takes no steps to improve herself, a decision which I feel is the reason she goes on to have an affair with her best friend's husband.

Heather is one of the most normal of all the characters we’ve seen so far. She does, however, possess a lot of bravery. Although considering that she is depressed by the death of her man, I can’t tell if she takes all these risks because she has nothing to lose.

Among all of them, my personal favorite was Doug. The author, of course, misleads you into thinking that Doug should be a perfect suspect for Miranda's murder. And why wouldn’t he be? He has a history of violence and gives the reader the idea that he’s done something shady in the past, and the most perfect reason, of course, is the mental illness that causes him blackouts and leaves him unaware of what he has done in that period. Convenient suspect thy name is Doug. You have no idea how glad I was that it wasn’t him who killed Miranda. It would have seemed like lazy writing if that was the case. The ending that Doug gets was really sweet so I was entirely satisfied with his development.

One issue I did have with Doug’s story was that his psychiatrist gave him the option to stop therapy which seems weird to me. Now I know that you can’t force someone to take therapy but this was when Doug was charged with assault, whether or not he didn’t spend time in prison due to his PTSD from the war that caused him to lash out violently, Part of his sentencing must have been a court-sanctioned order that would have him take up mandatory therapy and let him go once he got the help he needed. While the psychiatrist does agree that Doug needs more therapy, he lists the sessions as only advisory instead of mandated. Now here’s why that’s strange. Doug suffers from dissociative fugue, a rare form of dissociative amnesia. This is why he loses time where he won’t remember what he does. While he is removed from the stressors, he doesn’t pursue further treatment which is just plain strange considering how serious his case is. To be fair, I’m no medical expert but with a little google-fu, I’ve found that the treatments listed below are what is required to treat this state.

• Psychotherapy

• Medication

• Family therapy

• Creative therapies (art therapy, music therapy)

• Clinical hypnosis

I am a little skeptical of the hypnosis bit but some people do consider it a legitimate treatment. Anyways, Doug doesn’t do any of this. True there is little information to glean from, but I considered two main points.

1) Whether Doug has come to terms with his trauma.

2) If he takes any medication.

And for both, the answer is no.

Another issue I had was that there was no mention of whether Katie testified at Emma’s trial which again weird cause Emma gets away with only 4 years of jail time. It’s more of a slap on the wrist considering everything she’s done. Now you may say that while it doesn’t mention that Katie testified at the trial, it doesn’t mean that she didn’t. But then why exclude it? Also, when you read Katie’s narrative, in the end, it sounds like the main focus of the trial was whether Emma intentionally killed Miranda or not. It says that Emma put on a show and said it was only an argument and a tussle gone wrong but wouldn’t a coroner be able to tell that Miranda had clear strangulation marks around her throat? And even if that was difficult to tell (which I don’t believe because the book mentions that there was snow so that should have delayed the body’s decomposition.), What about the fact that Emma picked up a shotgun and nearly killed Katie and her baby if it weren’t for Heather pushing her out of the way. She fired that gun in front of multiple people which was a clear indication of attempted manslaughter. Why was this not put forward in the trial?

Despite these two parts that left me wondering a bit, I did enjoy the book. I found most of the characters except Doug and Heather deplorable. But it also made them equally fascinating to read about. Miranda and Katie's' unequal standing, while they were schooling, did not last. While Miranda was someone who peaked then it did not follow through in life as she expected it to. She was unable to hold a steady job and failed in many areas. Whereas Katie managed to have a successful career she failed to realize she was not the same person she was while schooling. This left her with an inferiority complex towards Miranda which ultimately lead to her having an affair with Miranda's husband

Overall I liked the pacing of the story and the fact that the perspectives of the people on the murder site were given. I would give it a rating of 6/10.

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