This mystery/thriller follows a group of friends on an annual New Years Eve vacation to a remote hunting lodge in Scotland. Told from multiple points of view and with flashbacks, we learn more about the characters and how their relationships have evolved over the past 10 years since being in school together. What starts out as a leisurely vacation turns deadly when a snow storm strands the group and one person disappears and is found dead. The snow storm blocks all means in or out of the area so the group is forced to look within to find the murder trapped among them.
I read Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None last month and absolutely loved it. I believe that was my first closed circle mystery and after this one, I think these are becoming a new favorite flavor of mystery. I really like the immediate tension and suspicion that this type of story structure naturally brings out. That being said, this didn't exactly work 100% for me but it was still a really fun read.
My favorite aspect of this book was the cast of characters. We get the perspectives of the group of friends as well as the two workers who live at the lodge full time. The characters all alternate chapters and we get their feelings and actions in the days leading up to the death as well as reflections of their past. I thought the characters were diverse in their feelings and relationship dynamics. The main friend group were all upper middle class whose problems boiled down most of the time to 'rich people problems'. I know some people would be put off by that, but I found the interpersonal relationships to be fascinating in a sort of Mean Girls kind of way. Our initial view of all the friends are pretty positive, but we quickly find out that they aren't as chummy as they pretend to be. I also found the two staff members at the lodge to be really interesting - they both have pretty dark backstories that explain why they would choose a job where they are pretty much isolated from society most of the year. I wish we would have gotten more chapters from their perspective of the friend group but the whole book takes place over the course of about 4 days so space was pretty limited. This is one of those books where most, if not all, of the characters are unlikable which I really like. We also don't find out who dies until well into the book so we see all these different potential motives between the different characters and we just have to go along for the ride to see how everything ends up. This was really fun to guess along and try to decide which of the motives were potentially strong enough that someone ends up dead.
The setting in these isolated, closed circle mysteries is really key to how believable the plot ends up being. In this case, I really enjoyed the hunting lodge as a setting. It is super atmospheric, dark, and creepy which is the perfect contrast to what started out as a fun holiday away with friends. We do get some scenes of the characters walking around the grounds and there is one scene where they go out hunting deer (and successfully kill one) but I think more could have been done with the landscape. I think a lot of the tension comes from the interpersonal conflicts that arise in the group so it feels like a bit of a lost opportunity for some man vs nature tension to be in the book as well. I do like how we get the backstory of the lodge which is dark and bloody in its own way. I think if there were like 2 fewer characters and about 10% more interaction with the outdoors it would have been perfect. The lodge is a really interesting mix of modern and rural. For example, they do hunt deer for food and population control but they can also catch a train into the city to pick up more luxury items. Also, the lodge and cabins are all recently built and are furnished well. One of the staff members thinks about how the city people come up to the lodge with their luxury outdoor wear (boots, coats, etc) but those brands don't actually hold up to real wilderness weather. Again, I think there was a good amount of opportunity for more tension and conflict with the setting but most of the time it wasn't explored as much as I would have liked.
The main plot is where this story fell down a few pegs for me. As I mentioned before, I really liked finding out all the different motives that the characters may have against other characters, but once we find out who the victim is, I feel like it defeated the point of all that build up. I think it would have been more suspenseful if we didn't find out who died until the past timeline had caught up to present day and then we go full steam ahead into the end of the book. I also found the investigation to be pretty lacking in substance, mostly due to the time constraints of the book. I feel like the chapters we get from when after the body is discovered are pretty low stakes until the very end climax of the story. I would have liked more of an active investigation and more red herrings since one character is, sort of, investigating what happened. I found the story to float in a weird middle between being a procedural and more of a character study. The reader knows various reasons why the victim might have been killed, but the group of friends just thinks the person is missing so they aren't really turning on each other or questioning motives which would be fine but when the other characters are half investigating what happened, it made everything feel underdeveloped. I also guessed the twists ahead of time, but only because there were just one too many hints or mentions of a particular thing. Once or twice and my brain just thinks that's background info or world building but mention that same aspect a few more times and alarm bell start going off. It felt a little too heavy handed right at the end like *hint hint* remember about X? *hint hint* X might be important soon *hint hint*. Maybe readers who don't read as many thrillers wouldn't pick up on these same hints. I don't mind guessing twists ahead of time but I do get a little annoyed when they feel too obvious in the actual story. I want my mysteries to make me feel smart, not like I'm taking a reading comprehension test.
I wanted to briefly mention my feelings about the actual solution to the book. This book does use the trope of mental illness in the solution and while I didn't find it to be an exploitative use of that trope, I do know some readers prefer to stay away altogether. We also get an epilogue where we find out how the killer and some of the other characters end up a few months after the events of the book so we get a bit of closure that way.
I listened to the audio book of this while I was doing yard work and it is a full voice cast which I really like. I really have a hard time with remembering character names and in an audio book I can't easily flip back and forth to remember who X character is. But with the different narrators I could immediately remember who was who (even if I couldn't remember exact names). I also found Foley's writing style to be really readable (or, I guess, listenable). I think she does an excellent job at grounding the reader before going off with the rest of the chapter which I find an imperative skill to have for multi-POV books. I didn't find the prose overly flowery or overly descriptive but Foley seemed to have a way of telling me the exact right amount of information for me to get a quick sketch of where the character was or what was happening at the beginning of the chapters. I also found the narrative style to be a bit different with each character as far as what types of details they would notice or how their inner monologues sounded which, again, helped me keep this whole cast of characters distinct from one another.
Overall, a pretty fun mystery where we follow a bunch of rich jerks as they try to have a good vacation in a remote hunting lodge in the middle of winter. Backhanded complements, judgemental looks, and angst abounds. Wish the actual murder and subsequent murder investigation heightened the tension instead of somewhat lessening it.
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