All of them are friends. One of them is a killer.
During the languid days of the Christmas break, a group of thirtysomething friends from Oxford meet to welcome in the New Year together, a tradition they began as students ten years ago. For this vacation, they’ve chosen an idyllic and isolated estate in the Scottish Highlands—the perfect place to get away and unwind by themselves. They arrive on December 30th, just before a historic blizzard seals the lodge off from the outside world. Two days later, on New Year’s Day, one of them is dead.
The trip began innocently enough: admiring the stunning if foreboding scenery, champagne in front of a crackling fire, and reminiscences about the past. But after a decade, the weight of secret resentments has grown too heavy for the group’s tenuous nostalgia to bear. Amid the boisterous revelry of New Year’s Eve, the cord holding them together snaps. Now one of them is dead . . . and another of them did it.
Keep your friends close, the old adage goes. But just how close is too close?
Blurb taken from Goodreads.
✼
I read this on a family member's recommendation. They told me: "You have to read this, it's right up your street. But it has a twist!"
That twist?
You know a murder has been committed, but you don't find out the victim until the very end. Intriguing!
I must say, this book was definitely right up my street. It had a real feel of Agatha Christie; a lodge in a secluded location, a group of friends who are all too ready to stab each other in the back, and the notion that anybody could have committed the crime. All smiles on the surface, but everybody with an axe to grind. But then you get to the ending, and that's less gentle Christie, and every part psychological thriller.
I thoroughly enjoyed this, and was surprised by just how easy to read it was. Given the amount of characters introduced at the same time, I expected it to be more confusing, but I was pleasantly surprised. These characters are strong, and the story moves quickly. The plot is dark and gripping, and as soon as I started it, I couldn't put it down.
Rating: ✫✫✫✫
SPOILER ALERT
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| A snippet of The Hunting Party, taken from a chapter from Emma's perspective, including an interesting quote. |
The Characters
The book starts off with the introduction of a group of friends on their way to a lodge where they'll be spending New Year's Eve. And it doesn't take you long to realise that almost every one of these people is, in their own way, an arsehole. You've got Mark, who's obsessed with his best friend's wife. There's Julien, who doesn't seem to care about his wife anyway. Then you've got Katie, who acts consistently like the world owes her a favour. And Miranda. I spent so long growing further and further into a dislike of Miranda. Don't get me wrong, there are some characters who aren't so bad. Nick and Bo I quite liked, and Samira manages to skate by without anything putting me off her. But it's not difficult to see why one of these friends would end up dead, killed by another.
Nonetheless, the variety of characters was good. When they were introduced, I thought it would be really difficult to keep track of who was who, but it was made surprisingly easy. The chapters written from different perspectives make it a lot easier to differentiate everybody, and it was written really well to make it easier on the reader. I also found that I liked the characters of Heather and Doug. They were misfits, and nobodies, but that added to the contrast against the posh group of friends who had just turned up in their lodge. They added something different to the story, without making it overcomplicated. Damaged characters, with their isolation being symbolic of that.
The Story
I really liked the idea that we wouldn't find out who the victim was until the very end of the book. It adds suspense to the story, and the structure of the book was very engaging, switching back and forth between the past few days and the present moment; from the build-up to the murder, then to the aftermath.
There is a 'but', though. I liked the idea, but in most mysteries you find that it doesn't take a genius to work out who is going to be murdered. In most crime books, it only takes until a few pages before the murder to work out who the culprit is. This book gave a whole lot more time to work out who was going to get killed, although I didn't find it awfully difficult to do so. The real issue with switching between different characters' perspectives for different chapters is that these characters are much stronger, and easy to read by extension. Miranda, Katie and Emma therefore had a lot more substance to their characters, so I felt immediately that they had a much higher chance of being involved. Miranda especially, as she is very openly manipulative, and it doesn't take a wild imagination to work out that there are a lot of reasons why her friends might want her out of the way. From very early on, I knew that she would either be the victim, or the murderer. From then on, it was just a matter of working out which one. I was also, for the reasons outlined above, fairly confident that the other would be Emma or Katie. I wasn't certain by any stretch, but they felt to me to be the only other characters who had enough substance to believably be heavily involved. If it had been anybody else, I think the ending would have fallen flat. I just wish there had been a little bit more to the bulk of the story so that the options didn't feel so limited.
The book was so fast-paced that it seemed to take no time at all to get right to the end. And I had spent almost all of that time really hating on the character of Miranda, so when I found out about Julien's affair with Katie, I found myself shocked into feeling sorry for her! Not sorry enough to forget about all of the horrible things she had done previously, but just enough to feel a little empathetic, and turn resentfully towards Katie instead. This switch was written so well to allow for this easy switch in loyalties, and I found myself disliking Katie for acting so superior in the explanatory chapters that followed. It was a neat little twist right at the very end. Necessary? No, probably not. But just another way to keep intrigue in the mystery.
I'm in two minds about the ending. When I discovered that Ian was involved in drug-smuggling in some way, I couldn't help but feel a little disappointed. The murderer surely couldn't be somebody who had barely had any time made for him in the story! But it turns out this was just a clever sub-plot; a ruse! I quite liked that there was something else bubbling on underneath the surface that was uncovered. Again - very Christie-esque! But then we discover that he saw the murder instead. Well, I'm glad he didn't do it, but I thought it was a bit of a cop-out that he had witnessed it, and so could easily describe who was the real culprit. I think it would have been better if he'd heard something, or had a final clue as to who had done it, that Heather could have worked out from some information gathered earlier in the story. Those little things make the investigating seem so much more exciting! That said, I didn't dislike the ending. I just think it could have been improved slightly in places.
However, I could kick myself for not picking up on more of Emma! Now that I've finished the book, her role as Miranda's stalker seems so much obvious. I'd suspected she may be responsible for the murder, but I had never come close to guessing why. I loved that chapter where she reveals the truth; where she discusses how she came to be wrapped up in this mess. It was necessary, and really bulked out the final stages of the book. She was such a nice character - what a twist!
The Verdict
This was a great idea - I loved waiting to find out who had been killed, as well as discover who was responsible! The beauty of this book is that it took all the elements of a classic crime story; the secluded location, a group of flawed characters, a couple of outsiders, and lots and lots of backstory. All of this, with the slight twist.
And I genuinely did love it. I absolutely flew through it, finishing it in only a few hours. It was gripping and intriguing, and had all the components of a perfect crime novel. The only problem was that, ultimately, it was a little obvious who was going to be involved. It's a real shame, because if there had been more characters who had been bulked out, with chapters from their perspectives, I think it would have been far more shocking.
On the whole, however, this was a really good story, brought to life with several (if not all) characters, who helped to make for a gripping, easy to read, exciting book.
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