“But it is a lot easier to face the day when you know you won't have to face other people and their happiness.”

 The road south, somewhere near Glenora, the Derwent Valley, Tasmania. April 2021.

The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley 

A well constructed little mystery in the manner of Agatha Christie, I struggled with this book only because every one of the ensemble cast is loathsome. This is not new to the genre, but as we find ourselves stuck within a claustrophobic setting - a snowed-in estate in a remote area of the Scottish Highlands - throughout, there's no relief from this boring and snobbish bunch. Quite why novelists seem to struggle to think of characters that aren't lawyers, hedge-fund managers, advertising execs, and consultant-types is beyond me. They're all so dull.

Now, we are given a pair of sympathetic characters to offset the ghastly assemblage. But, alas, the wounded heroine (a grieving paramedic) and hero (a traumatised war veteran) are too clichéd to generate anything other than mirth at the hackneyed inner dialogue and overly-credulous thought patterns.

I will say that Foley does a decent job of dishing out red herrings and keeping the complex multi-perspective and parallel narratives on track to a suitably satisfying conclusion. The problem for me was that it was all just so bloody pedestrian.

⭐ ⭐