The Hunting Party (William Morrow, $26.99), by the young British author Lucy Foley, is the perfect mystery for the winter holiday season. A group of friends from Oxford, now in their 30s, schedule their annual New Year’s reunion at a luxurious hunting lodge in a remote part of Scotland. As soon as they arrive, a monster storm descends, leaving them snow-bound with no way to get out. On the second day, one of them—the reader doesn’t know who—is found dead, apparently murdered. Who did it? Foley alternates from character to character to tell the story, pin-balling her readers from one plausible theory to the next. As the narrative evolves, long-held secrets and simmering grudges emerge, adding to the suspense. As for the culprit? Is it one of the Oxford group? Or maybe one of two lodge employees who take care of the place? Or the strange couple who happen to be the only other people staying there at the same time? Get your cup of tea, light a fire, and sit down with this engaging, entertaining who-dunnit. And check the weather before you book a room in a Scottish hunting lodge in winter.
Heaven, My Home (Mulholland, $27), by Attica Locke, is the second book in the Highway 59 series and it’s sure to wow you as much as its predecessor, Bluebird, Bluebird did. We’re back again with Texas Ranger Darren Matthews. His assignment is to find a kidnapped child; however, this child is linked to a well-known family of white supremacists. Though Darren is dedicated to his job, as a Black man, this fact plagues him. If the child is still alive, will he grow up to be a racist and wreak havoc, like the rest of his family? Is Darren able to put his personal feelings aside to do his job well and bring the kid home? As a fan of Locke’s work, I found this to be one of her best books to date. Heaven, My Home can easily be given to the mystery reader on your holiday list or anyone looking for an entertaining read with an engaging plot and a host of characters they’ll never forget.
Australian novelist Jane Harper is on a roll, having now produced three magnificent psychological thrillers in fairly quick succession. Her latest, The Lost Man (Flatiron, $27.99), introduces new characters (the first two books featured a detective protagonist named Aaron Falk), but still relies on the author’s familiar themes of family hardship, resilience, and survival. The harsh, desolate terrain of Queensland provides the backdrop for the story, which begins with the mysterious death of one of three brothers, whose car, and body, are found miles apart for no explicable reason. Geographic and social isolation, as well as family secrets, all emerge to offer clues to solving the mystery. Harper, a former journalist, is an expert at sowing false leads in her readers’ minds, creating doubts about what sort of deceptions could have led to a man dying of dehydration in an area he knew well, and weaving together strands of evidence as the story becomes more tangled. Her greatest gift: You never figure out what happened until the very end. At least I didn’t.
