Lucy Foley's The Guest List - Review

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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