I have read this novel at least a hundred times and I bet you have too. Lucy Foley's The Hunting Party is an irresistible locked room mystery - fun, twisty, Agatha Christie gave us the classic in this mystery sub-genre in And Then There Were None which became the longest running play in London (second only to Cats I believe, which is hard to explain).
These mysteries have experienced a resurgence in popularity in the past years, probably due people paying to be trapped in rooms with friends and spending an hour trying to escape. Murder mystery dinner parties also encourage participants to hone their detective skills as they witness a murder and question suspects.
Locked room stories follow a pattern beginning with a crime that seems impossible. An isolated location bars into the scene of anyone other than the people present. In this book, a group of college friends - more like frenemies - meet for their yearly New Years gathering at a fancy pants Scottish resort, miles away from everything. A blizzard traps them, and even the police helicopter cannot find them through the blinding snow.
We need a group of suspects and in this case the promo materials identify them as the beautiful one, the golden couple, the volatile one, the new parents (and their baby), the quiet one, the city boy, and the outsider. Add to that the estate gamekeeper with PTSD, and the elusive estate director. One of them must be the murderer.
Locked room mysteries often start at the beginning and work backwards. Here, the first few chapters let us get to know the characters and we decide who we like. Of course we pick potential murderers, too. Shortly after those bits are taken care of, a body is discovered. The twist? We don't know who it is. The rest of the story is told through alternating chapters and flashbacks, before the murder, with all characters present or referenced. They sure are a messy bunch.
It's all good fun. Reading carefully will lead directly to the murderer, but the plot loopty loops lured me away from the logical path more than once. Give me a good red herring and I'm on it. In the end, I had figured out who was killed but not who-dun-it. Locked rooms always end with the dramatic denouement - everyone gathered while the clues are unveiled one by one, eliminating some and implicating others, until the truth is revealed.
Well, we're all in a sort of locked down life for a while - why not crash The Hunting Party.
Thanks for stopping by.
Stay safe. Stay healthy. Stay happy.
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