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The Hunting Party has a great setting and has an Agatha Christie style set-up. A small group of college friends get together each year to celebrate New Year. This year they are all at a hunting lodge in Scotland. The wintry weather soon isolates the group from civilization. The only other people at the lodge are an Icelandic couple, the caretaker, and the young woman who runs the place.

Jumping back three days before New Year, chapters are written from some of the characters point of view. Interspersed are present day chapters in which we learn one of the group members has been murdered. The author is cagey, not specifying gender or name of the deceased.

I liked the set up and first 50 pages or so. My problem was that by page 80 I literally knew who was going to die and who the killer was. I also knew one of the other secrets. There was a side “mystery� that I didn’t notice early on, but by then I was rather bored.

It wasn’t a compelling read for me. Perhaps I’ve read too many books like this. I should have known when they compared the novelist’s style to that of Ruth Ware. I have struggled to enjoy her books so maybe that should have been a sign that I would struggle with this novel as well.

I am sorry to be a bit negative about a book so many are enjoying but I just didn’t feel the same level of satisfaction.