Sunday, June 30, 2024

The Hunting Party - Lucy Foley ------------- 3 Stars

I read The Hunting Party was a great "who dunnit" story from the other side of the pond. And, while I was actually pretty engaged with the book (which ultimately saved the rating), I thought the story was a mess and pretty frustrating by the end.

The book is a few years old and it fits in that genre of what I've read too much of lately: mystery type novels, often involving a death, with a bunch of potential characters who may be guilty. This one reminded me so much of a mix of The Girl on the Train (much better; review here) and Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None (yes, a classic). Like Girl on the Train, alcohol and other devices made it difficult to know what was reality and what was a person's misremembering - what a simple (and maybe lazy) way to confuse the reader. The setting was a secluded farm in rural Scotland with about 8 potential murderers, which reminded me so much of the 10 suspects on the island in Christie's book. 

I really did think the story was a mess. Besides having 7 or 8 different narrators, timelines jumped all over the place. And, while some replaying of scenes from different POVs made it more interesting, some were repetitive and/or didn't provide any new information. The characters were also really oddly shaped. Some had great depth and others minimal; again, all with different timelines sharing that information. I won't even go into the ending, but it was a let down for me.

On a positive, it's an engaging read, especially for the first half when things were making a bit more sense. Many chapters left the reader curious what was going to happen next and the author didn't strike out totally with the back and forth descriptors of things. I did find myself often wanting to continue reading the next chapter; though, oddly, I didn't find myself wanting to continue to read the book after I put it down.

Ultimately, I've read a number of books of this type that were simply better; more creative, more logical with better formed characters and plot. However, you could do a lot worse this summer if picking this up. It's an easy read that likely will hold your attention and it might remind you about all the ways some other books are superior.

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