Lee Allen's Blog - Posts Tagged "lucy-foley"

The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


A fantastic debut thriller packed with secrets, lies and betrayal.

A group of friends reunite for New Year’s Eve, an annual tradition they have observed since leaving university. This year they have travelled to a hunting lodge in the Scottish Highlands, a lonely, desolate wilderness with only two on-site staff. A snowstorm renders the group evermore isolated before one of their number goes missing. The gamekeeper and site manager undertake the search and soon uncover a body – but what led to this person’s demise?

Told from the perspectives of several characters, the narrative flashes back and forth between before and after the murder, uncovering the events that led to one of the friends going out into the snow and plummeting to their death. Long-buried secrets, grudges and old wounds are brought back to the surface, leading to revelations which members of the group would rather leave hidden.

In the style of a classic whodunit with a modern psychological twist, ‘The Hunting Party’ isn’t just a whodunit, it’s also a why-dunit, with the added complexity of the identity of the victim also kept part of the mystery to leave you guessing until the end. The mysteries are carefully unravelled, tension building to the final chapters. While I had worked out the motivation of the guilty party, with the victim’s identity unconfirmed it still left you guessing, wondering at the direction in which the twists would take you.

An engrossing murder mystery set in the heart of midwinter, ‘The Hunting Party’ is a highly enjoyable novel that will make you question even your closest friendships. Lucy Foley’s second thriller, 'The Guest List', is due for release next year and already I'm looking forward to reading as it promises to be as good as the first.



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The Guest List by Lucy Foley

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


A clever and absorbing murder mystery by Lucy Foley, author of ‘The Hunting Party’.

Jules and Will’s wedding promises to be the wedding of the year, an event to be remembered. On a remote island off the Irish coast, close friends and family gather in preparation for the celebration. But this is not to be the joyous occasion it ought to be. Unease ripples beneath the veneer of love and friendship. Secrets and lies begin to surface and old wounds threaten to re-open. Someone is not going to leave this island alive.

Transported to the rugged landscape of this small island, waves crashing against the rocks beneath the cliffs, you can feel its natural beauty and the imminent danger posed to the guests from the novel’s outset.

Foley continues with the structure that proved so successful in ‘The Hunting Party’ – a remote and isolated location; the story told from the perspectives of a handful of characters in flashback, leading from the day before the wedding to the fateful wedding night. A whodunnit, why-dunnit, how-dunnit, all wrapped into one; the identity of the victim as much a part of the puzzle as the identity of their murderer.

Brilliantly plotted, the twists are orchestrated skilfully – one in particular giving me that jolt of pure pleasure at just how well done it was. Twisting and turning throughout, peeling back the layers of deceit, weaving a tangled web of mistrust, the plots grips tighter as we approach the final revelatory chapters.

‘The Guest List’ is a hugely enjoyable mystery, which I read across one long and sunny weekend, lost in the characters and the plotting. A perfect summer thriller, but – be warned – you may not be able to look at your friends and loved ones in quite the same way again afterwards. Be careful who you trust.



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The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


A psychological mystery with a gritty edge.

Arriving at her brother Ben's Montmartre apartment for a last-minute visit, Jess is surprised to find he is not at home awaiting her arrival.

His unexplained disappearance soon takes a darker turn as it becomes apparent that one of his fellow residents in the apartment building must be responsible.

Ben had uncovered a story that someone did not want told. Now Jess must undertake her own investigation and uncover the truth before she too falls victim to the rot that has set in to the building and its occupants.

'The Paris Apartment' is Lucy Foley's third mystery novel, packed with twists and revelations, clues and red herrings, the narrative pieced together from the perspectives of multiple characters. Drawings on elements of a classic whodunnit, the novel also develops a noir-like atmosphere, while there is something that is borderline gothic in the vivid setting of the apartment building and the aura of the past haunting the present.

Jess is a brilliant central character - a flawed and scarred survivor of a troubled past, thrust unwittingly into someone else's world, becoming desperate and determined in her quest to find out what fate has befallen her brother. Meanwhile, everyone appears to have something to hide, each of the residents both witness and suspect. Foley's stories get under the skin of human relationships, the secrets and traumas of the characters intertwining as the plot develops.

A key strength of Foley's writing is that all the clues are there to be interpreted as you become immersed in the story, yet it is told in such a way that you can never be quite sure who or what can be trusted - the beauty of multiple unreliable and fallible narrators. Even when you have unravelled elements of the mystery yourself, you continue to question until the very end, all the pieces falling neatly into place in the final chapters, maintaining the mystery for as long as possible.

Tightly plotted and fast-paced, in 'The Paris Apartment' Foley has woven another intricate puzzle that grips and entertains throughout.



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Marple: Twelve New Stories by Naomi Alderman

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Agatha Christie's Miss Marple returns in a collection of mysteries by contemporary writers.

Schemes of blackmail and murder in a small village…
St. Mary Mead’s vicarage is once again host to murder…
A trip to Manhattan turns deadly…
Miss Marple unravels a public family drama…
Christmas celebrations are interrupted by a jewellery theft…
A sudden death in an academic circle…
A killer strikes on an Oriental cruise ship…
A wedding is interrupted by a sudden poisoning…
A writer plots a murder in the sunny Mediterranean…
Miss Marple’s great-grand-niece becomes embroiled in a murder…
A peaceful visit to a Sussex village leads Miss Marple to uncover a string of murders…
Called back to St. Mary Mead, Miss Marple is asked to investigate a man’s sudden disappearance…

'Marple' presents twelve short stories by twelve mystery and thriller writers, celebrating one of Agatha Christie's most ingenious characters and her second most famous detective - Miss Jane Marple. Behind her unassuming appearance of the elderly spinster and legatee of the Victorian era, in her neat quaint cottage where she tends her garden in the small chocolate-box English village of St. Mary Mead, is a woman with a keen understanding of human nature and a skill at solving even the most complex of mysteries.

Every one of these stories is a perfect slice of the genius of Miss Marple, as sharp, unobtrusive and quietly observant as ever, capturing the subtlety, intuition and intellect with which Christie wrote her character. My personal favourites were:
'The Second Murder at the Vicarage' by Val McDermid, for its vintage style and sleight-of-hand solution;
'Miss Marple's Christmas' by Ruth Ware, for its festive, classic mystery atmosphere;
'A Deadly Wedding Day' by Dreda Say Mitchell, for its thrilling pace and twists in the narrative;
'The Mystery of the Acid Soil' by Kate Mosse, for its detail-driven plotting and masterful piece of detection.

This collection has so much to delight a mystery reader - secrets and lies, plotting and scheming, adultery and affairs of the heart, clever thefts and strange disappearances, and, of course, brutal murders. Featuring an eclectic mix of supporting characters, which also include some reappearances of several from Christie's own stories, such as nephew Raymond and friend and neighbour Dolly Bantry, the stories are told from differing perspectives, taking place across multiple locations. With allusions and references to Christie’s stories, this collection of tales makes for an indulgent treat.

Part of the genius of the Miss Marple stories is in how so many people simply dismiss her as an elderly woman. This theme remains as timely as ever - the elderly often written off, their time passed. Within the collection, we experience how elderly people are seen in other cultures, revered for their wisdom, knowledge and life experience – in contrast to what is often seen in British society and similar cultures. As well as exploring perceptions of the elderly, the underlying theme of aging also runs throughout the collection - how it feels to grow old, especially as a woman, to fade into the background (or be expected to), while your mind may remain as it ever was. It's quite unclear just how old Miss Marple is in her later stories, but she never loses the twinkle in her eye or her ability for astute and quick observation. If we must grow old, as all of us who are lucky enough to do so must, then let it be as Miss Marple does.

Miss Marple, much like Poirot and many other classic detectives, was a delightful part of my childhood. As Sophie Hannah has done with her 'Poirot' novels, the authors featured in this collection have offered the world something we believed lost with the passing of Agatha Christie - new stories featuring these incredible characters. Like Christie's entire legacy, Miss Marple remains immortal.

A marvellous collection of mysteries, both fresh and nostalgic, ‘Marple’ proves the magic of Agatha Christie never wavers, her spirit within each of these tales from twelve talented authors.



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The Midnight Feast by Lucy Foley

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


A thrilling midsummer murder mystery.

Luxury health retreat The Manor is due to celebrate its opening weekend to mark the Summer Solstice.

Shadows gather as old rituals stir, secrets resurfacing from deep in the forest as ghosts of justice and vengeance descend upon the feast.

The event is destined to end in murder, as a body lies beneath the cliffs, the once-buried past staining the town with blood.

'The Midnight Feast' is the fourth mystery thriller by Lucy Foley, and may be my favourite so far! As has become Foley’s modus operandi, not only is this a whodunit, but also whydunit and howdunit crafted by the perspectives of multiple characters, their narratives piecing together the events surrounding the Summer Solstice celebrations at the newly opened hotel The Manor, taking us back and forth in time and memory to reveal secrets, lies, guilt and crimes, past and present, while identities of both perpetrator and victim remain a mystery until the final chapters.

With a slow-burning opening as we start to get to know the characters, at first you may be unsure you would actually want to spend time with any of these people. The Manor is conceived as a destination for social media influencers and corporate businesspeople whose entire existence is centred around superficial image and wealth, lacking in substance, depth or integrity – a retreat for the self-centred and narcissistic who, unfortunately, at times seem to have the loudest voices in the modern age. As we peel back the layers to see beneath their skin and into their minds, the narrative kicks into gear; a gripping and relentless thriller ensues.

Foley explores the core theme of identity, particularly female identity, how people don masks, literally and figuratively - to hide or escape from their true selves, to show the world a version of themselves they wish they could be. None of the core characters is who they first appear to be, and Foley makes clever use of characters' perceptions and prejudices to deliver sleight-of-hand twists, connections and revelations, knotted with emotional and thought-provoking moments.

I loved the coastal setting and the seclusion of the neighbouring rural village, the quaint and beautiful British countryside of the classic cosy mystery encroached upon by the glossy veneer of the modern development, inspiring rebellion and activism; with added light touches of horror in the cult-like Birds of local legend, akin to the Furies of mythology, and the evocation of folklore and witchcraft tangled with the themes of healing – the deep and spiritual, swathed in shadows and connected to the soul and nature, versus the airy and superficial, hollow words of the narcissist and social media age.

Riveting and entertaining, ‘The Midnight Feast’ is a midsummer delight, a warning to never underestimate the powers of darkness nor the enduring lights of justice and the human spirit.



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