“The Perfect weekend away. A remote lodge, old friends… and murder”
- Book: The Hunted (P R Black)
- Location: Scotland
- Author: P R Black
Take a group of five schoolfriends, some of whom have met up as twos or threes in the intervening twenty odd years, but have never got together en masse before. As they don’t keep in touch on a regular basis, non-one is certain which one of them has actually organised the reunion, with each of them assuming it was one of the others. A recipe for disaster when their destination is a lodge on a remote Scottish island, only accessible by sea plane, boasting few dwellings and with no communication to the outside world, save for a patchy landline service and an even more unreliable cell phone connection.
Four of the ladies make it to Owl Tree Halt unscathed, however they receive some very garbled messages from the fifth member of their school day club ‘The Owl Society’, whom they now assume to have been the trip organiser, which become more and more strange, until it becomes clear that she will be unable to join the party after all. If only the others knew what was going on in the woods around them, they might not have been so unconcerned at this turn of events, or what was about to happen next.
As with all distant friends, memories are not always a true reflection of reality, so after a very short time in each other’s company Leah, Toni, Debs and Mouse, quickly conclude there is now more which divides them than which binds them together, although perhaps that was always the case, as long-forgotten snarky personality traits come to the fore and irritating habits cause friction.
Deb is the loudest, most forceful and insistent of the group, so when she declares that they should play ‘truth or dare, reveal the worst thing you have ever done’; followed by ‘first shag, best shag’, events quickly spiral out of control. Alcohol consumption rises as tempers flare and vitriolic but truthful thoughts are shared aloud, which once aired can never be taken back.
After infidelity is added to the long list of things which should never have happened at such an event, the ladies retire for what is left of the night, blissfully and drunkenly unaware that gruesome goings on have crept ever closer and are now happening right under their very noses.
They are woken the following morning by two very irate husbands, who have been trying to contact their wives, after the husband of the missing partygoer sent out the distress signal, although he has yet to arrive. This just adds another interesting dimension to the game being played by a mad person who isn’t interested in taking prisoners.
With anyone who gets in the way being picked off mercilessly, the remaining women have finally woken up to smell the roses and worked out who they think their menacing adversary might be, or at least one half of the team, as the maniac’s unknown silent partner, who to all intents and purposes is an innocent party, is equally deadly and deranged.
Our deadly duo might not have done their homework as thoroughly as they might have though, as they underestimate the ‘riding a bicycle’ syndrome, when desperation and the will to survive, means that skills and attributes which were thought to have been long since left behind, kick in instinctively, alongside the increased adrenalin, which helps to overcome the fear of the situation and the pain of injury.
Did anyone survive this deadly encounter unscathed? – You might just need to read the book for yourself to find out!
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Whilst the location of this story is fictional, there are a myriad of similar Scottish Islands which, under normal circumstances, might be lauded for their relaxing isolation, peaceful idyll and beautiful landscape. However, the ladies little piece of paradise, is now transformed into a scene of morbidly eerie silence, punctuated by screams of terror and fear. Some close attention to detail and the wonderfully visual descriptive qualities with which author Pat Black painted the scene, made this journey encapsulating and totally immersive. I left this carnage behind me, fully satisfied with my ‘armchair traveller’ experience, although I don’t think I shall be adding any remote Scottish Island retreat to my holiday plans anytime soon!
I decided that a 3* location rating was the fairest, as the location was fictional and I couldn’t plot the storyline.
This is a storyline which could easily be adapted as a film script – Think ‘Halloween’ meets ‘Chain Saw Massacre’ meets ‘Final Destination’ – and you have a good idea of how addictive it might be!
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