Welcome to the Buddy Book Club – we have a light-hearted comedic podcast that covers a variety of books. The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley is a classic murder mystery whodunit. In the vein of Agatha Christie (we read And Then There Were None so we know all about the Queen of Mystery). This one take place in the snowy Scotish Highlands, so is the perfect book to read whilst curled up by the fireplace.

We did a full breakdown of The Hunting Party On two episodes (our first one we guessed the killer!). So, check it out if you’re interested.

Our book club questions try to be a little more outside the box/comedic than your typical book club questions – hopefully you enjoy them.

Book Club Discussion Questions – The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley

-> What did you think of the second half of this book? We had high expectations after the first half, but it seemed to fizzle, do you agree or were you happy with how things wrapped up?

These murder mysterious rely so heavily on the ending, which makes them tough to know if you’ll like until the very end.

-> Miranda torches every bridge in the second half: assaults Mark by forcing champagne down his throat during Truth or Dare, calls Bo ‘pretty cool for a junkie’ after he kindly brings her water, and tells Katie she has “fried eggs for breasts. Is Miranda the villain or the MVP of entertainment?

Miranda is the type of person who is super entertaining to hear about, but not someone you actually want in your friend group.

-> Emma is Miranda’s stalker. They got drinks together. They went dancing together. Just the two of them. Miranda doesn’t remember any of this. But she DOES remember one photo from ten years ago with 20 people in it where Emma is in the background. Miranda even says “I’m good with faces.” How is this possible?

I’m good with faces, the one thing I actually brag about, and this is offensive for Miranda to say she’s good with faces.

-> Miranda accesses crappy Lodge WiFi from her distant bunkhouse and scrolls through Facebook to find photos from ten years ago. Any chance the photos are actually loading? Especially since its 10 minutes of her scrolling through old photos. Most unrealistic part of the book?

After the first couple pictures took forever to load I’d give up.

-> Ian and the owner are smuggling cocaine through the Lodge. It has absolutely nothing to do with the murder plot. What was the point of this?

Just a last minute red herring?

-> Emma learned to cook elaborate meals in college hoping Miranda would walk by, smell the food, and ask what she was cooking. Is this crazy behavior or actually really considerate way to make friends?

I ate ramen and cafeteria food in college so, if someone was making homecooked elaborate meals, I’d be best friends with them.

-> What is your feeling on playing truth or dare as 30+ year olds? Also, Miranda dares Katie to jump in the freezing loch. Katie does it to “show Miranda” something. How does that show Miranda something? Sounds like you did exactly what she wanted. Are you playing truth or dare in this situation and are you jumping in a freezing loch?

Crazy move by Katie, makes sense why they’re playing truth or dare.

-> Emma murders Miranda (strangulation), attempts to murder Katie (shooting), and only gets 4 years in jail. Keith: Is British justice too lenient or perfectly reasonable?

Sounds like a good weekend for Emma if we’re being honest.

-> Heather is a paramedic. Emma is about to shoot Katie (probably in the heart). Instead of letting Katie get shot so she can SAVE her with her medical skills, Heather somehow sprints through 3 feet of snow from up a hill and takes a gut shot herself. Heroic or stupid?

This would be like the medic in World War 2 taking a bullet for the soldiers, now no one can be helped.

-> When Katie hooks up with Julian outside, she says “I came embarrassingly quick”. Asking for a friend… Why would you be embarrassed as a girl about that? I think that’d be a pat on the back. Is this a thing?

As a man fortunately no girl has ever said this to me… How embarrassing right, right?

-> The sex-crazed, heart-eating, outdoor-fucking-in-the-snow Icelandic couple appears, eats a raw deer heart, disappears from the narrative entirely, and may or mayn’t be involved in cocaine smuggling. Why weren’t they part of the main story? Best characters in the book?

Is this how everyone in Iceland rolls? Hold on booking a flight.

-> Mark passes out drunk at parties and snores (established in first half). Then he upgrades from Emma (murderer) to a new girlfriend who looks like Miranda but probably isn’t a murderer. Pretty good weekend for Mark, right?

Or does being exposed as the guy who passes out and snores make it overall a tough weekend?

-> Who would you cast in a movie version of this book?

We do casting for books, check them out.

The buddies finish up The Hunting Party and discuss their past predications and feelings on the book. They take on the role of stock advisors, re-write the ending (they’re now authors) and discuss respecting women and fried egg nipples.

Transcript for SEO Purposes 🙂

All right. Welcome back to the Buddy Book Club. Thanks always to pacecar Joe for our intro music. I’m Dylan here with my good buddy Keith, to deep dive into some books from past and present. We’re a podcast for the common people. We’re here to make reading fun again. That’s our goal, I think. Right. Is that fair? Yeah. I wouldn’t use the Trump slogan just because we’re not political here. But like I said, we’re here for the common people. I mean, actually a quick anecdote that I think is applicable here. Keith and I used to work together, and there was a cafeteria of sorts in the office building. And at one point they had a contest for who could make the best sandwich that they were going to adopt at the office. And everyone was coming out with these caramelized onions and Gouda cheese and slices of Apple and stuff like that in their sandwiches. And Keith here, he basically made a Turkey club. He improved it a little bit down the middle. That’s how we do it. Yeah. Put a little bacon on it. And he called that if I remember correctly, he called that sandwich the Common man or the Every man or something like that. Right? That’s right. And you know what? At the end of the day, that sandwich won. It wasn’t all this highfalutin arugula with the goat cheese. No, it was just what people wanted. A nice, simple yet delicious Turkey sandwich. And that’s what we’re trying to bring to the listeners here. Great enough. I’d say that’s fair to say, right? Yeah. That’s definitely fair. I don’t know if we have the same winning abilities of that sandwich, but we’ll try to get there. Yeah, well, that’s fair. We’re working progress like you’re saying, and we love to hear from our listener buddies out there whether it be thoughts on the book. We’re reading ideas for the podcast. I mean, even hate mail. Send it our way. You can reach us on Twitter at Buddybook Club on Instagram at Buddy Book Clubpodcast. And you can shoot us an email if you’d like bookclubpodcast at gmail. Com. Now, with the pleasantries out of the way. Keith, my Maven of murder. What are we discussing today? We are getting into the second half of the hunting party. Last episode. We covered chapters one through 25. There weren’t any spoilers or anything like that. It was just based on our predictions, what we thought was going to happen, our thoughts on the first half. Now we’ve finished the book. We’re going to go over what we think was going to happen here, predictions and then characters stock up and down versus what we thought of them from the previous episode as well. Well, before we get into that, we got to tackle the most important subject, which is, what are we drinking today? Because we like to every episode have a drink associated with the book we’re reading either. Something we’ve created on our own, or like this book, thanks to an author here, Lucy Foley, who seems to enjoy a good imbibing of her own. She includes a bunch of drinks throughout the story, so we appreciate that keeps it easier for us. So this week we’re going to be wetting our whistle with either. She talks about some Puy fume fume. I don’t know which is what Katie drinks when she’s at the bar alone, the bartender gives it to her, which I respect without her even saying anything, which is actually a dry Savignon Blanc produced around the puyzulore area in French, right? Yeah, I don’t know. And that’s probably going to be a pass for me. I’m not a big on the white, so we’ll move on. There’s also. Her and Julian do meet up at the bar as well. They get into it for sure. He offers to buy some Hibiki, which is a Japanese whisky. Supposedly the 17 year old version is best. So I assume that’s what Julian’s drinking because he always wants to be the best. That’s a $500 bottle of whiskey, and I’m not a huge drinker of the Brown stuff, so I’m going to pass on that. You wait till it gets about 18 years. Is that right? I believe. Yeah, right. Too much. I thought that’s when it gets ripe, right? No. At least allegedly. Allegedly, we’re going to go with a classic gym beam and Coke, which is what everyone’s drinking in their College years. I mean, what’s more American than a gym beam and Coke? It’s also affordable. So I’m going to go with that. Cheers to you. Also wet your whistle. Side Note it’s a super old phrase. It was actually written as early as the 1300 in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, and the Mouth was often referred to as the whistle at the time, so it’s actually pretty straightforward. You’re just wetting your whistle. We’re here to teach people a lot of things, and that’s a good one. Good little tidbit right there. Yeah. If that’s all you learned from this podcast, then hey, we love it. Happy to help the second half of Hunting party. Let’s get into it. This book was to me pretty much like the Ram Super Bowl of 2019. We all entered with high expectations. And the first half there’s not a ton going on, but they kept it interesting. It was 30 Patriots at the end of the first half, and then the second half again, not a ton going on, but at the end of the day, the good guys won, and we’re mostly glad we watched or read. In this case, I guess when we start part two, the fun of the games are mostly over. Old resentments and long buried secrets begin to surface within the group. The second half is pretty much centered around New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, whereas the first half is kind of a couple of days before sprinkled in with the present. But the group decides to go hunting, which is what you kind of do when you’re in the Scottish Highlands. Blood lust is up. Emotions are high. It kind of sets the tone for the second half. People start snapping at each other, but ultimately, at the end of the Hunt, Emma, I think my favorite character, Emma, she takes down the deer. They have their New Year’s Eve supper, followed by a game of truth or dare, a standard game for 30 somethings to play. Everyone continues to binge drink, especially our girl Miranda. We and Miranda find out Katie’s pregnant with Julian’s baby after a particularly sultry kind of linguine in the sauna, Miranda confides in Emma, only to find out Emma’s, her stalker smash cut to Heather, who’s headed up to the old Lodge on a whim and finds Ian and the owner have been using the Lodge as a front to smuggle Coke. Doug comes to the rescue for the damsel in distress, shoots Ian and saves Heather. Meanwhile, back at the lock, Miranda and Emma discuss how being a stalker is, like, totally not cool. Emma disagrees and does her best big show impression by choke slamming Miranda into the abyss. Emma continues to act rationally and tries to murder Katie, who she understandably blames for the whole situation. Heather arrives just in time, and although she was a paramedic in a past life, she would have made a great Secret Service agent. She takes a bullet for Katie, and Emma gets hauled off to prison. So that’s pretty much the story. And I’d like to lay out the twists here because there were a few so twist. Number one is that Giles, my boy. He actually had sex with Miranda. Yeah. You loved Giles, right? From the last half, you said he was the best character. Does that change your opinion of him? It does change my opinion. Okay. Yeah. For the better. I will get to know stock up, stock down. But I think I really want to know your yeah. Okay, my boy. Keep it up, brother. Also, Julian has been having an affair with Katie and put a baby in her belly. Emma turned out to be not only the stalker, but also the murderer of Miranda. I guess Miranda being the one who died is a twist, I guess, spoilers, by the way. I don’t know if we mentioned that. Yeah, little too late and unassuming. Ian the guy who pretty much just didn’t mention his name in the first half. No, he didn’t like rightfully so. Yeah, he wasn’t in at all. Okay, but I’m assuming Ian ends up being a drug smuggler along with the owner of the Lodge estate. Does that cover all the twists? Yeah, I think that brings it full circle. I think some of these characters faded into oblivion at the second half of the book. I don’t think we even heard from Giles was a brief snippet. Samir was gone. Bo and Nick weren’t there the random pink couple made an amazing side entry again, and then the Strangler Highland Strangler. The Ripper was a Ripper. Yeah. Okay. Whatever. He just disappeared, too. It wasn’t him. Well, we did do an initial podcast last week about the first half of the book, and we made some of our own predictions. We rubbed the Crystal ball, but I think it’s time to call in KPMG and do a comprehensive audit of our prediction. Big four, right? Yeah. What do we get right? And what do we get wrong? Sure. So I will start off with an auditor myself. First one, the big prediction I made was Miranda’s bipolar, which I think is still inconclusive. The reason I predicted that was essentially because I didn’t think the stalker was real. It seemed too absurd that someone would be doing that, which Emma’s character is pretty absurd, but that ends up being incorrect. But Miranda still could be bipolar, considering how crazy her mood swings are. I’m not a clinical psychologist, so I’m not here to kind of paint people like that because I just don’t know. I don’t even know what Bible. What are you trying to say? Yeah, I don’t know what it means. Either I thought that Bible or multi personality disorder is what I was going for. Okay, those are probably the same thing. Okay. Either way, inconclusive definitely could have been. So maybe he wasn’t in the book. You watch one episode of The Sopranos, and he goes to psychologists and you’re like, yeah, I can start diagnosing people. I’ll go to one of yours now. You can probably cover it. But also, by the way, do we need to put a spoilers in the first part? Because I thought you were just auditing you. You were fucking spot on that. People are going to read the first part, and they’d be like, Did D man read this beforehand? And he didn’t know when you said that earlier, when you’re like, yeah, we didn’t have any spoilers in the first part. I was like, I don’t know, a lot of spoilers if you just listened to what I said. Yeah. So I guess I kind of dug out the fact that Emma was the stalker and she was my number one for being the murderer. So, yeah, those both checked out. I called Katie and Julian having sex in a visa. The only thing that I didn’t know was that Ian actually played a part in this at all and that Katie was pregnant, which I guess there was her not taking a drink on the train, and there’s probably a couple of other things in there. You also said if this is a romcom by the end, Doug and Heather would be hooking up, and that kind of seemed to be what was happening by the end. Right. Like the end. They definitely hooked up at the end. Yes. So you’re kind of spot on everything here. I actually liked Katie or Heather’s line. When she was at the end of the book when she was like, yeah, I’m getting my flat in Edinburgh or whatever. Doug said he’s going to come visit, and I’ll have to get a pull out couch that may or may not be used. And the one thing that doesn’t pull out, dog, come on. That was too easy. The one thing that I did learn is that. And this is because I’m a psychologist now also. But if you have a ton of problems, mental issues, just get shot. Everything gets fixed like I did. Rather she’s like, you know what? Now I’m back to normal. Wait, what? You fall in love? No. Yes. If you fall in love again, then all of your problems go away. None of these problems are going to resurface. So someone sits on your couch is like, I’m ready to commit suicide and you’re, like, Just fall in love. It’s easy. Yeah, exactly. I would be like, just get shot. Any predictions we got wrong or, like, dead wrong? I think the Ian not even mentioning him or the secret shack. We kind of didn’t even consider that that was a little bit hidden in the book. Do you want to talk about that right now? The en thing. Yeah, it’s troubling. You tell me your let me lay down on the couch for you. So I guess my biggest issue was that it didn’t matter. Like, who fucking cares? The whole cocaine backstory line. Ian smuggling cocaine with the owner. It has nothing to do with anything. It wasn’t even a red herring. Yeah, it should have been like, Giles’idea to come to the cabin, and it was him smuggling. And then you could actually think Giles is a killer or is involved all of a sudden. But to make it just some random guy that’s not really talked about at all for the first half and then has a vital role for five minutes, and then it doesn’t matter. I’m with you that someone there should have been involved with the cocaine smuggling somewhat. We’ll get into that at the end because I do have an idea about that. If we were to rewrite the ending, but let’s talk a little bit about characters. We have our main base of characters, which is kind of like a closed room murder mystery in that they’re all locked up pretty much in this Lodge, and one of them is a murderer. So there’s no real ancillary characters. We have a clean set of characters. Let’s discuss them in a stock up, stock down segment. So Miranda, Julian, stock up, stock down. What do you say? I’ll start with Miranda. She ended up being who we thought she was. We thought she was going to be dead. Here’s what I will say about her is that getting choked out by a weaker Emma after a nice nap, a nice boot and recoup, and you’re getting some angry adrenaline pumped into you after finding out your husband is cheating on you. You can’t let that happen. A smaller Emma. You just cannot. So it’s really bad luck. So just stock way down. There. Another thing I want to mention about her is that Miranda is like, the guy at the bar, the big guy at the bar that says, what are you going to do about it? What are you going to do about what are you going to do? Every single character she’s like, Giles. Yeah, I’ll tell your wife that you cheated with me. Emma, you’re pathetic. You’re disgusting. I can’t believe you’re a stalker. To Katie, to Julie, to all these people. She’s basically just like, what are you going to do about it? And then Emma is kind of like, I’ll choke you out and kill you. And so, yeah, that’s pretty tough talk. Way up for me. Way up, really? To the mood, to the moon. When did she say that? She’s currently out of business filing chapter seven? Yes, her company is no longer traded, but it was a shot to the moon. Then the SEC came in and shut it down. A Jordan Bell for it. She’s just torching bridges left and right in the second half of this book. And who doesn’t love watching someone fall from Grace? I mean, let’s go through Mark during the Truth or Dare game. She assaults Mark, throws a champagne bottle down his throat and makes him chug the entire thing, which anytime anyone’s ever tried to chug champagne, it just sprays all over you. They go into vivid detail about his eyes bulging out of his head and stuff like that. I mean, even James Dean would blush at an assault like this. All right, next up, Bo, who seems to be just a good guy. She’s wasted. He goes and gets her some water because he’s like, hey, you’re drunk. You should have some water. Super nice thing to do. What a great friend. And after she has her water, she calls him a junkie. Like to his face. She’s like, You’re pretty cool for a junkie. It’s like, fuck. This is stock all up. I’m still stock up. Yeah, she’s burning Bridges. Okay, I got it. It stocked up in terms of, like, watching real TV with a mad Rashad. It’s just watching. I don’t know that reference, but totally, you never watch real TV. Great show. It was like, the original forechan or something like that. Just like, cars crashing and Katie gets it the worst. I think she refers to Katie’s breast as fried eggs. I mean, that’s an absolute Savage disk. There’s no recovery from that. Yeah, divorce. Miranda was like, I’m not even upset that you cheated on me. It’s that you cheated on me with her. Oh, gross. She has fried egg nipples. That’s fucked up to say to somebody. So talk about Bernie, but this is your best friend. Jesus, her best friend is cheating on her. But shit happens. Miranda, this is the dissenting opinion is that Miranda said she hadn’t cried since College, which was like ten years ago. And it was because she didn’t get top honors. And Katie did anyone that hasn’t cried in the last ten years. Something wrong with that? I cried two days ago. Were you doing a psychology terrorist attack down right now? What was it over movie? Yeah. In and of itself on Hulu. Jesus Christ, if you don’t. I mean, that’s what I would do to see if someone was psychotic, as I asked them to watch that. And if they had no emotional response, I’d be like, all right, you’re going to the gulag, but, yeah, it’s just like crazy. I mean, she’s been having trouble having a kid. She has trouble with her relationships. She has trouble with her job, like none of that elicited any sort of emotional response that led you enough that you could weep even for a moment. Also, Miranda, the dissenting opinion is Miranda’s memory. Do we want to talk about this? Yes. We’ve kind of gone in on Miranda. It doesn’t make any sense. So for me, Emma’s, her stalker, as we had discussed. And as everyone knows now, that has read the book. But her and Emma, I was going to think like Emma saw her at a party or something like that, which is true. But Additionally, her and Emma got drinks. Just the two of them went out dancing, just the two of them. And she doesn’t remember this person. I mean, this is a whole another level of self indulgence that you don’t even see other people. Is that the case you spent a day with this person? Is that possible? I don’t understand. I was offended most by the fact that she said, I’m good with faces. First off, I’m good with faces. If you got to say, keep with faces. What is your best attribute? I say I’m good with faces. That’s it that’s number one. And that’s it. I don’t have anything other positive traits. Really? So the fact that she’s using this, it’s like the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. The fact that also she uses that as a. Oh, I remember this photo that I took with this person ten years prior, but she doesn’t remember hanging out with her for the ten years when she was literally right in front of her face this whole time and stalking her. That doesn’t make any sense. Maybe it’s because she’s vain and she looks at her photos. That’s the only thing I can think of. But early in the book, she also says, I look at photos, and I don’t remember any of these people’s faces. So which one is it? Yeah. Pick your site. I mean, I totally get it. If Miranda and I think this is a total human thing to do. If you look at photos, the first person you look at is yourself and you say, all right, I look decent there that’s not crazy, but to immediately upon realizing that Emma is her stalker to be like, wait, there was that photo from College. That one photo from ten years ago that I remember. There’s 20 people in this photo, but I remember this little person in the back like that’s. You. It wasn’t like, wait, did we get drinks together? Didn’t we go dancing together? None of that. Actually, this is where the gym. Cheers to Jim Beam and Coke. That’s what her and Emma drink when they’re out dancing together. So, yeah, that’s my Miranda stock still up, though. Stock is still up for me. I’m not really sure how the stock market works for you, but. Okay, it was a fall from Grace, but I’m giving her positives because it was really the most entertaining part of the book for me. What about Julian? Yes. I’ll talk to Julian just quickly. I would say it takes a lot of balls to have section of sauna right next to everyone, but those balls are going to be low, and they’re going to be hanging. They’re going to be sweaty, and he’s going to be a lot of water in there. So it takes a lot of effort. I don’t think they had sex in the sauna. It was a cunningus part. They’re about to. Oh, it was a foreplay, if you will. Yeah, but then he was like a huge bitch after I just didn’t like his attitude after I’m going to agree with you. Stuck down way down for me, plummeting. He does the slimy move and tries to play both women. Yeah, we’re not about that here. If you’re going to play women, play one, you can’t play two. It’s too hard for you. You just don’t have enough in yet. He tries to play Katie, and then he tries to play Miranda. To Miranda. He said, oh, Katie came on to me. She was so relentless. And then he goes back to Katie, and he’s like, Miranda is crazy. I just want to be with you. Also, more importantly, maybe he invents a weird nickname for Katie. It’s like Katy did. I understand what was going on with that? I think it was just his nickname. So Miranda’s nickname is Amanda, which makes sense because their nickname is Miranda. Katie did. It doesn’t even roll off the tongue. Like at least KT or like, K. T. Anything. Katie did trash Julian Stockway down for sure. Let’s go to our favorite couple here. Samira and Giles. Giles. Giles? Yes, Giles. Okay. It’s definitely Giles. I don’t even want to touch on Samara because he didn’t even come up at all. She was already bankrupted way back. And then Giles, he basically wasn’t part of the story other than that one little quick thing to make you rethink it. But what do you have on them? I knew Simon Peg, aka Giles would never. He doesn’t have a murdering bone in his body. He’s just a good dad for me. His stock is up. It’s flying. I don’t understand your stock here, but. Okay, well, his stock is up because he hooked up with Miranda at her peak in College. He got her at her physical peak and is technically in the clear because it was before him and Samira got together. So even if it all did come out, obviously, his wife would be kind of pissed because a he kept it from her and B, it’s like a hotter chick that he was hooking up with, which is like, obviously going to bother someone. But at the end of the day, she can’t do anything about it. It was before they were together. Oh, it was okay. That makes sense. It was like their freshman year or when they were freshers. And so he has the ability to be a single guy and do single things. Aka hook up with tens, which is what he did. Yeah, you’re right. I’m coming back around the stock’s back on up now for me. Yeah. And Additionally, we’re going to assume that because it was right before him and Samira got together that this is the last woman he hooked up with before his wife. Now you’re not hooking up with any other women. So the last woman you hooked up with before your wife was a ten. Good for you, bro. Yeah, that’s how you go out. That’s how good on you. Yeah. So he went out on top. Good for him. And I agree with this. Samir call her stock is just whatever. I don’t even think it’s traded, but she gets to have her kit, and she’s happy. She doesn’t have to pay attention to these horrible friends anymore, and she can just enjoy her child. So that’s probably a good thing for her. What about Emma and Mark? Probably our most Dower couple here. Yeah, this is Google and Apple right here. These are both way up. We got Emma, who comes out hot right in the beginning of after chapter 25, after we started reading Kills a Deer, gets the blood smeared on her face, which is fucking awesome. Then chokes out her best friend who was pissing everyone off Miranda. So she’s not a little bitch then she’s like, you know what? And I’m going to go kill this Katie chick, because that’s just being loyal and then only get four years to prison, right? It was only four years at a woman’s prison. That’s nothing. That’s a great weekend. If anything, that’s a good story. You tell people after stock up. I did have the note that she gets four years in jail not only for murdering someone, but also for shooting someone else. It’s not discussed in the trial. I think they just decided we’re going after this one and we’re going to throw out this whole shooting of the other person situation. You did murder in the UK. I’m pretty sure I think that’s if you don’t kill someone, that’s just a tough weekend. That’s all it is. Yeah. And to be fair for Emma here, I don’t even think she was that crazy or I didn’t think she was that crazy throughout the whole time. I was like, all right, I get it. You see this other girl, you’re kind of a loser and mouse, and you want to be this other girl. So you emulate them. You wear the same clothes as them. You put on the same lipstick, the same makeup, you kind of do the same things as them. It’s high school stuff, but it’s stuff that we’re all kind of familiar with. If there’s a get popular guy at school, hey, let me try. If I can act with his swagger or something like that. So I get that part until she told the story of how she took up cooking, which was basically that Miranda didn’t Cook and couldn’t Cook, but like to eat good food. So Emma decided to learn how to Cook and make delicious food on their floor in College in the hopes that Miranda would walk by and smell the food and ask her what was cooking? That’s psycho stuff. That’s crazy train. So up until that point, I was like, all right, she’s not too bad. And then there I was kind of like, yeah, maybe she is a little nuts. What about Mark? I just said he didn’t beat anyone up, and he upgraded to a hotter, less psychotic girlfriend. Stock up. That’s just a great weekend. Also, you realize you didn’t end up with Emma, who’s kind of insane person, and you just upgrade right away. What’s the issue here? Right? So at the end of the book, they say that he gets a new girlfriend who looks like Miranda, but probably isn’t a murderer. Yeah, so win win for everyone. I think that’s fair. I think it’s a fair assessment. I valued the stock a little bit differently. I have a stock down for him. I don’t really like the price to earning ratio. He’s paying out dividends here on this one, he’s exposed as the guy who passes out at parties and snores. We all know that guy who drinks a bunch goes to a party, and then you end up pass that on the couch. If these guys decided to bring Sharpies with them to Scotland, he would have had the mustache. It wouldn’t have been good for him. It’s not a good look. Being the guy who passes out on the couch after drinking it’s, either that or he’s assaulting people. So I don’t know which one we want there. Either way is a bad hang stocked out. Yeah, but that was already evaluated in my prior stock assessment. So that’s the baseline. What about our girl Katie? Yeah, Katie stock way down again. Another almost like teetering on bankrupt Enron type situation here. So she gets pregnant, finds out about that, then just kind of carries on, like, nothing’s happening. Whatever. Then she gets bullied. She’s like, Miranda is so mean. Miranda is so mean, just complaining, treating her like a bitch all time. Even though she’s doing the worst thing ever, cheating with her husband. Then they play the truth of their game. And Miranda is like, go jump in the water, which, if you didn’t want to do it, don’t do it. No one’s going to be like, wow, you didn’t do a truth or dare it. Who gives a shit? And her justification for doing it was, well, I’m going to show Miranda what? How does that the opposite of showing her that’s literally getting bullied. And then you’re doing what the bullied said to do. You really showed her. It’s crazy talk. And then also, she has a baby, right? And she’s jumping into, I don’t know how babies work, but doesn’t that potentially kill the baby? It’s dark. But baby Lucy Foley’s onto this. She’s like, hey, kids. So here we go. I don’t know about the baby thing. I think plunging into cold water is probably fine, but I do agree with you on going along with the truth or dare thing. It’d be like, Will Ferrell and Step brothers being like, oh, yeah. You guys want to make fun of me? Like, all right, I’m going to eat this white dog shit. Yeah, watch. I’m going to eat it now. You’re just a fucking weirdo. She said Miranda quote, unquote makes her jump in the lock. She didn’t. She’s a high powered lawyer and then gets pouty because no one made you do anything. We’re on the same page. We’re on the same frequency here. We’re adults just don’t do it. Lastly, and most importantly, there’s no recovery from someone saying that you have fried eggs for breasts. All right, stock way down. Bo and Nick. What do we think about them? I just wrote who question Mark. I don’t even want to touch them. I don’t care. They didn’t add anything to anything. Yes, well, I think Bo good guy. He comes across as a good guy. He helps Miranda out in the drinking situation, and he can drink while also being an addict, which seems counterintuitive because it is. But, hey, if he can do it good for him. And he luckily doesn’t find the stockpile of hidden cocaine, which undoubtedly would have caused a relapse for him. That’s an open face cocaine buffet, and he doesn’t find it. So he then can live the rest of his life. So that’s a win for him. And Nick. He hates Miranda, and she’s dead, and he’s probably all right with that. So they moved to the States overall. Stock up steady, right? This is long term blue chip stock. It’s a long hold. Yeah, that’s one of those I didn’t see coming, but. Okay, that’s fair. Yeah. Let’s get into the non friends in Heather and Doug, starting with Heather. What do you think about Heather again? I think I touched on this, but this is a case of from now on, if you’re having a tough life, things are going down. Just get shot, fixes everything. That’s a big stock up everything’s back to normal for her life somehow after taking a bullet. Also, why is she taking a bullet? What? Because I told you she’s a paramedic and she wants to help people. Let her get shot, then help them. Wouldn’t that make more sense? That’s like the medic in World War II getting killed. And you want the medic safe so you can save all the other people because everyone else doesn’t know medical shit. Katy is about to get shot. Probably in, like the heart because they say donate for the head. So she’s about to get shot in the heart. And instead, Heather jumps in and gets a gut shot. Obviously pretty dangerous. Tony Soprano had a gut shot and he luckily survives. But Heather did the same. She said this woman is going to die. There’s a certain kind of person that likes to jump in the way of fire. And I also think that’s what Doug loves about her. They share that in common. Also, that scene moved really slowly in that Emma’s about to shoot Katie. Heather is up the Hill a little bit. It’s been snowing for days, so there’s, like, 3ft of snow on the ground and somehow sprints to take this bullet. She’s been out there for a while. She’s swimming in frozen ponds. She’s ready to go. I don’t question. She’s become a world champion snow sprinter and finds love at the end. So stock up for me? Yeah, for sure. And Doug? Yeah. So Doug, we learned, obviously we knew he had a dark past. We found out that he Blacks out and then just starts violently screaming at times and does random shit. He doesn’t know what’s happening. He’ll just be outside, like screaming like a Fox that’s being murdered. Yet Heather is still way into it. I think Tom Hardy comparison I put last episode might not even be fitting it. It’s got to be someone better looking somehow, because this dude must be just fucking just the most desirable person of all time. If you can do those things and she still will be into you, right? You know what? You are right? And he is better looking and he is more desirable. Let me set this scene for you. Doug went to war, came back, got into a bar brawl and did hard time aka community service for his actions. Did we miss cast him? Is he not? Cameron Poe from Con Air said, put the bonnet back in the box. He’s Nick Cage. We miss cast him. It’s Nick Cage, a way better looking guy than Michael. So much more discount when you’re right, you’re right. Sometimes you have to put your hand up and say that was my mistake and own up to it. It’s literally the Cameron Post story. I swear, Lizzie Foley was sitting there and trying to figure out how she’s going to round up Doug’s backstory and convert was on TNT, and she was like, oh, my God. This stringy haired, half Balding man is Doug love it. Give him a wife beater my man. Doug Stock. Way up, way up. I’d like to discuss the last two in Ian and the Strangler, so I think these guys are kind of tied together in that they were briefly discussed throughout the book and then had some little effect at the end. So I’ll just go for Ian flat stock here. The IPO just got released, and there’s no action. He also survived getting shot. So good for him. It’s a huge positive for that, right? Because his life is going to turn around now everything’s gone. Yeah. And he for sure gets a plea deal for his testimony against the boss. So he’s probably out of jail in a couple of years, loses the money he made. But at the end of the day, he’s all right. So it is what it is for you before we get into any sort of listener email, what are your thoughts on how this book ended? I think we’ve kind of alluded to it, but a little bit unsatisfactory. I do have a way to fix this without really changing that much, but I think making it much more satisfying. Can I indulge, please? Okay. Everything stays the same. Pretty much up until Heather going to the secret Lodge. There signs, Ian. There difference here being is that Ian is big time drugged up. So he’s up on that Yale all day, every day. And so he gets shot. But the shot in this case is actually end up being lethal. And he’s all fucked up. They’re like, who is it? Who is the killer? And he’s like, it’s this fucking big, shadowy dude. And we kind of see in the mind of the end, and he’s thinking, it’s just like terror in the night, right? This big fucking thing. So they immediately think, okay, he’s dead. But now he at least told us that it’s one of the two guys, Mark or Julian, right? So they go question Julian. He’s accounted for. He was trying to get back into the Katie situation, right? So he’s accounted for. But now they go to Mark’s room and Mark’s there, and Mark obviously has this fucking short temper, right? So he gets all hot and bothered, and he just found out that the love of his life, Miranda, just died. So he’s fucking off the rails, right? Getting all pissy. That may be bringing this up. They stumble upon the stalker cabinet of all this shit that he said, and they’re like, oh, so what’s all this shit? Even though we know this is Emma’s right now, it’s almost set in stone that it is Mark. So he sees the writing on the wall, and he starts fighting right away because that’s his nature. Doug who? Doug then freaks out and starts fighting back. Heather loves Doug, so obviously shoots and saves Doug. Mark dies. Beautiful. Perfect ending, right? That’s not bad. However, it is still

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Emma. However, the last chapter is literally through Emma’s mind and being like, yeah, I choked that bitch. She’s dead. And now she’s dating Julian, and she’s making her caller M like, Emma for Miranda, and she’s basically become Miranda. That is how you end it. Katie, you wouldn’t know that as the reader until that last chapter when she’s like, yeah, it was me. I love it. I love it. I’m a fan. I think it ends way better not to change it very much. Right? That’s pretty much the same story. But with everything laid out, I had, like, a Quentin Tarantino esque ending. So I was going for more of that. Bo might have, even though he was off the sauce, he was still involved. He was a connect in the drug market. And that’s how he was making his money. So this Icelandic trip he had previously, he just put the bug in Amazon. That like, hey, check out this place in Scotland, but Bo was actually setting it up for a huge New Year’s drug deal. So the drugs are coming in from Iceland, and the Icelandic couple is the ones that are ferrying them in from Iceland. So they bring the drugs to Scotland. Bo is kind of going to be. He’s bringing the money up, and he’s the intermediary him with Ian, right. And Doug figures out what the heck is going on in that the drugs are coming up there doesn’t necessarily know Bows the bad guy, but knows that there’s more going on here because the Icelandic couple, they’re in on it. Ian’s in on it, tells all the people down there, like, we got to go help Heather, who is probably a prisoner at this point. Unlocks the locker, hands everyone a rifle and is like, we got to get this shit going down. Doesn’t know that Bo is actually in on it. So big shootout. Icelandic couple, Ian, Doug leading the charge. These other people have learned from him after their hunting situation. He sets them up all the strategic places to do the fireworks, just shit going off all over the place. Grenades? Yeah. M 16. A lot of people are dead all over the place. Yes, of course. Doug needs Bo’s help. Right at the end, Bo turns on him. Boom kills him. What did he say beforehand? It was you. It was always you. Yeah, something like that. I love it. Or like, he’s like, Bo, I need your help doing this. And Beau, just like, I’d rather not shoot, but he has a British accent the whole time. Not American all of a sudden. Oh, very Dennis thieves and the only ones left. Julian has been clipped, but he’s alive, Emma, because she’s the sharpshooter. She’s still good. Bo takes Doug out, Emma takes Bo out. Just her and Julian. The cops come just like they were before. But now Emma’s Scot free because there’s no witnesses, no

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ties into yours. Where now? We like Emma, Emma’s savior of the whole thing. She gets away and her and Julian get away, and they do that whole. Now they’re together. Her nicknames M or whatever. Boom. They’re the only two that survive. I love it. I think we just made the book way better. Both of us basically authors now. So that’s cool. Asking for a friend. What do you get there? Yeah. So this isn’t for me. This is definitely not for me. When Katie hooks up with Julian, they do it outside. And Katie, as a girl, says I came embarrassingly quick. Yeah, that a thing for girls. What? You’re not me asking. I know, but

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you’re saying when they hook up in the stairwell of the apartment. Yeah. Why would you be embarrassed as a girl about that? Yeah, it would not be the best thing ever for a guy. No, I mean, I’ve never pleased someone to that degree. I was asking what Cumming means. I think that’d be a Pat on the back. But maybe she did her best guy impression and just kind of, like, sloughed off afterwards. She was like, all right, I’m done. See you. And she went to her apartment and just, like, left Julian standing there pitching a tent. I don’t think that’s what happened, buddy. Okay. No. Yeah, I don’t know about the embarrassingly quick. I wouldn’t be embarrassed. So, hey, Katie, if you’re out, there nothing to be embarrassed about. You really liked it. It was a passionate exchange. Good for you. If we could all have that, that’d be wonderful. Okay. And then cooking for others? Yes. You had mentioned that killers don’t Cook for other people. Are you ready to admit that you are a killer now? Wow. Really hard hitting questions here asking for a friend. No, I am not a killer. I’m a killer of hatred. That’s about it. No, I mean, hey, let’s be serious. We set the whole thing. Emma thing up with cooking people that Cook for others aren’t killers. But we also set the scene that the reason why Emma cooks for others is because she’s a psychopath who decided to start cooking so that hopefully the smells would walk down the hall and Miranda would float over to her dorm room like peppy lapieu. It just didn’t make any sense. I also think that Emma has a right to murder everyone. Personally, the dinner scene was absurd. Emma subbed in Venison for her brief Wellington, because, hey, it’s hyperlocal food. The hyper local food movement would be all for this. It’s a great idea. She spends days thinking about selecting the menu, and then on top of that, actually cooking it just to see Miranda pick off the pastry from the Wellington. And Katie says as I prod it with my fork, a little blood stream seeps out. And so that makes her not eat it, Katie. It’s not blood. It’s myoglobin. It’s a completely normal and safe protein that is in meat. And then to just push the food aside, no one thinks Emma for the meal. No one thinks Emma for her effort. She’s going around pouring drinks for everyone instead of enjoying the meal that she spent all day creating. And no one even acknowledged her hardship to show that you’re not a killer, I would literally murder all those people. Yeah. So I think because of that, all of them deserve to die. They’re lucky that Miranda was the only one, and I rest my case. Okay, then you’ve got mail. This is from Fred from Norfolk. Freddie? Oh, yeah. Fellow buddies. I like that demon and Keith loving the pod. I also think you guys sound really attractive. That’s a common thread. It’s weird. What are your thoughts on this? I would love to see a side bookmovietv show made about the drug smuggling, outdoor sex, having heart eating Icelandic couple. Do you think that is plausible? Thanks, Fred. I appreciate the question there. Yeah. So first off, the Icelandic couple is the strange strangers, right? We’re on board with that. Or the Reapers. As you said, what did you call them? The Ripper Ripper? Same difference. Yeah, it’s based off of Jack the Ripper and the Westminster Ripper. Whatever. The guy was in England. But I do think it’s interesting that they would be the Ripper. I think that’s because they packed light, they were kind of in and out. They had their whole thing going. I think that’s an interesting idea that they could be the Highland Ripper, considering that they were ready to kind of camp and move on. And we know that these murders had occurred across Scotland. I don’t think it was discussed whether or not they were involved in the cocaine smuggling. Yes, they weren’t. They weren’t they the ones that brought it in from Iceland. That wasn’t clear, but I think it’s safe to assume that the only Icelandic things we talk about are this random Icelandic couple and this cocaine coming in. I think it’s fair that we can assume that they were involved in it somewhat, but maybe a miniseries. A miniseries about smuggling and murder from this sex craving Icelandic couple. Yeah, I wouldn’t hate that. No, Fred, I think you’re on to something here. I know this book did get signed to a TV series by Seesaw Films. Yes. If they decide to go with maybe a longer format, I think they can dive into some of these side stories, and I think that I assigned a couple would be probably the most compelling one. So brings up an interesting point. I’ll be thinking about this. It’s probably actually the only thing I’ll be thinking about this book. After actually reading this book. I fell in love with them when Emma kills the deer and then goes over to get it. I don’t even remember what it was like. Butchered or blood out or cut or whatever. And I signed a couple of just there and they’re like, Let us have the heart. And she’s like, what? Yeah, give us the heart. I stopped that and started laughing. I thought that was hilarious. So they eat the heart just it, which is awesome. I’m a big fan of the Alaskan shows, the shows about people living on the range in Alaska, and anytime they kill a bear, you do have to hang the meat. The meat has to age a little bit, and you also have to bleed it. But they always eat the heart first, fresh off the kill. That’s kind of a big thing in this bear killing. And I think it’s also with other stuff, too. And deer would make sense. You’d want that heart fresh and supposedly hearts delicious. I haven’t had it myself, but it makes sense. It’s just one giant pumping muscle. And it also has this idea of, like, you’re taking a piece back from that animal after killing it. And it also has the idea of respecting the animal and that you’re going to eat all of it and you’re going to start with the heart. So I like that scene as well. I didn’t laugh as much. I almost was jealous that they were getting to enjoy that. Additionally, them having sex in the snow outdoors. I don’t know how much of an exhibitionist you are, but that sounds interesting. I was mostly mad that they weren’t involved in the second half of the book at all. Yeah, that was hard eating, which was awesome other than the hard eating. Yeah. It was like, Why are they hanging out in the place? You hang down. Exactly. That’s why I need to follow these people around. I don’t know what’s going on with them, but they’re awesome. And there’s, like, gunshots going on, and they’re just not addressed anymore. I guess that they were involved in the cocaine smuggling. They just got out of Dodge, but it just seemed a little weird to me and to wrap up what we were talking about earlier and kind of the traditions with hunting. And I thought it was interesting with the blood thing on Emma’s face. That actually is a ritual. It’s called blooding, where you smear. It’s a social ritual that initiates newcomers to hunting ranks. It’s believed to be started in the 16th century by English Fox hunters, considered a rite of passage. And there’s a number of other ones, such as Horn blowing, which is basically to alert other people that you’ve killed someone. The last bite, they killed someone or something. No, I think it’s for dogs and stuff. So like, if you’re hunting certain things, you boil the Horn and then they alert and like, oh, I can go pick something up. That’s not what they didn’t Fox in the house. I’ll tell you that the last flight is placing a twig in a Deer’s mouth as like an artistic or last, like, right of passage for the deer last meal. Yeah, pretty much. And then there’s also a tradition where you eat a small slice of the raw liver from the first kill, which is something. And then the Native American tradition was sprinkling tobacco on the animal as they thought tobacco was sacred. And it was like a way to bring it back to Earth or something. Yeah, wacky. But all of this I love. I love hunting traditions. I mean, I’ve never killed anything that was worth eating myself, but, hey, I think there’s something to that. I think people should probably kill more of the things they eat. And all these traditions sound pretty awesome. And I love Native America if we want to do a book, I don’t know if you’ve read Empire of the Summer Moon. That sounds made up. Okay. Yeah, it’s a great book about Native Americans and whatnot true story. But yeah, I love that stuff. So, hey, I dig it off. What did you love and hate about this book? That was the love. I just covered that. And then I hated the good with faces things. Those are my two big things. I talked about both of them. So did you have anything on your list you haven’t covered for Love. I had the setting itself. I thought it was awesome. Just like the isolation, the cold, the wet, the harsh climate, and these yuppies deciding to put themselves in it without even the right boots and stuff like that. The right coats. I think it also brings the beast out in you. It’s a bit like the shining in that aspect, and it definitely played a part in this book as like these friends who thought everything was cool between them, these old issues start coming out, and the darkness within them comes to the forefront. So I like that a lot. That’s pretty much all I had for love. Other Hates Truth or Dare at 30, we talked about this a little bit, but, like, at 30, it’s not that interesting. Truth or Dare is good up until you’re, like, 14. Because the whole point of Truth or Dare is to learn something about the girls. If you’re a guy who do you like, and then you parlay that into a dare for you to kiss that person, right? That’s the whole point. That’s how you get your first kiss. I got my first kiss in a game of truth of Dare, and that’s how you do it. It’s the age 1314. Call it at that. Yeah, I agree. Especially if you know these people, what could they possibly not know? Truth wise is true. Other Hates we’ve talked about Icelandic people disappearing the Highland River, not having anything to do with it. The entire cocaine plot. I mean, it being manufactured in Iceland just doesn’t make any sense. No, but Coca leaves are pretty much come from. I mean, I think it’s like 90% or something. Crazy, like, comes from three countries in South America. So are we assuming that they shipped raw Coca leaves to Iceland? We know it’s Coke, by the way. I thought it could have been. Isn’t Molly, like, ground up something that’s made in a lab? Or I could just be way off. I’m very nervous. Nice way to pretend smart. We already know you’re a killer, so you can get face and drug charges here, too. So it’s fine. I mean, MDMA or Molly is probably made in a lab. Okay. That’s why I thought it was Coke, though. I thought. But maybe if it was a party drug, that’s why these Icelandic people are fucking ready to go all the time. Yeah. I guess it’s possible. If that was the case, then yes, it could be manufactured in a lab in Iceland. It’s just the whole thing of it, like being run through this estate in Scotland. It didn’t make any sense. Yeah, I agree with that. And then probably my biggest gripe was the WiFi. The WiFi at the Lodge made no sense. So if we’re assuming this place has just like, I mean, I’ve stayed at hostels in Vermont when you’re going skiing, and they have really crappy WiFi because it’s like five doors away in the office. This WiFi was being run from the Lodge. Miranda was trying to access it from her bunk, which is her bunk house, which is not close to the Lodge, and she’s scrolling through Facebook to find pictures from ten years ago. I mean, they kind of put in there. They’re like, oh, not all of the pictures were Loading, Hon. None of those pictures are Loading. What are you talking about? You’re just looking at blank screens, but I’m just picturing her with Emma sitting in this room, and it’s like ten minutes as she’s scrolling through Facebook. Hold on 1 second. I’ll be right there. Hold on. I’m almost there something that’s as vain as her, too, has, like, 4000 pictures. Yeah, exactly. And it was over ten years ago. So also, by the time you get there, it’s going to be a super grainy photo because it’s fully going to load. It didn’t make much sense that they couldn’t get any service or whatever, but, oh, my God. Thank God. Julian told them to turn the WiFi on so that I can access this Facebook Photo. I like, how you’re so petty. I started this. It just didn’t make any sense on that. Would you recommend this book to a friend? I would for a beach book? Yes. So at the end of the day, I was still entertained. I know we had a lot of issues with it. I just like this type of book. I think I would recommend the audiobook. It’s like a play. You understand who the people are. It’s very easy and very vividly. You can see these people, you know, when you’re kind of listening or reading to a book and you just have a movie in your head just going that’s what it was for me. There was no point where I was thinking like, oh, I’m reading here. I’m listening here, which happens a lot with me for certain books. And so I just like this format, and I would definitely recommend the guest list. I think that’s a much better book than this one is also at least. So if I had to say, if someone was like, hey, I’m going to the beach, which I pick up, I would 100% recommend the guest list. If someone said, Should I read this book, I would say if you like the guest looks, but just know it’s not going to be as good. I think that’s totally fair. And I think the guest list, which is her New York Times bestseller. I haven’t read it. You have, but I think that probably ties in more to what you’re looking for in terms of a beat read. I did find myself at points doing the thing when you’re actually reading a book that you look back at the clock and you’re like, oh, it’s been an hour and a half. Oh, that’s good. Yeah. I thought I was reading for 30 minutes. I read for an hour and a half, so it was compelling in that sense. But I’m not a huge fan of this book. It’s not a bad book, like I said, but I found it to be pretty predictable. And with a book like this, you’re looking for those big twists and turns, and the twists just weren’t very interesting. Katie and Julie have been having an affair, and she’s pregnant. Like, all right, Emma is the stalker. Duh Ian was smuggling dope with the owner. Holes had better plot twists than this. I think if you’re a good reader, you’ll pick those things up. But when I’m just like, out here just not able to comprehend these things and not see through, then I think that’s the big difference. Well, I also think there’s not enough credit given to how hard it is to manage twists in book form. You’re obviously listening to it, which I think is a little bit different, but in this format, the author needs to give hints ahead of time so that you could have potentially figured it out. You can’t beat a twist at the end that you’re like, Wait, where did that come from? You have to be like, oh, shit. Yeah, right. This makes a lot of sense for what they said earlier, but with the ability to read closely and reread passages if you needed to or if you like, felt like even the paragraph before, like, Wait, something was said. You can kind of reread that it’s hard to slip these kind of things past the reader. So I totally understand the audiobooks are a little bit different. Yeah. Or just in a movie. I think that if it came out in a movie, there’s a lot more going on visually, and there’s not opportunities to go back unless you’re a psychopath who pauses and rewinds things which you should never do if you’re watching something for the first time. Rewatch is fine. So I understand the format makes it hard, but, I mean, there’s a precedent of lots of books that were able to do these twists and turns and do it successfully that I just didn’t really love this one. In particular. I thought the setting, I thought the writing was good, and I thought the drinks, especially, were very well curated. Cool. Well, what else questions for you personally? What else have you been consuming? You finished this book a little bit early. So what else have you been either reading or watching? What other kind of media you’ve been taking in? I just watched that Denzel and Remy Malek movie last night. Yeah, not great movie. Denzel usually can carry any movie, and then they have two good actors, Remy Malik. I think nobody told him he’s not supposed to be playing Freddie Mercury. He has the weirdest fucking look on his face the whole time. Yeah, that’s just kind of Remy Malick in general, if you want, Mr. Robot. Well, he only plays the misfit. Well, and he was playing like a lead Detective. So it’s like, pass for you. Big pass. Yeah, it’s pretty boring, too. I’ve been watching some Tony Scott movies, which I didn’t even realize was Ridley Scott’s brother. So most recently, Spy Games Brad. Oh, I just watched that Robert Redford. That’s a good one. That’s a really good relatable movie. Really good movie. I enjoyed it thoroughly. So I saw that. And then, as I talked about earlier, the last time I cried a couple of days ago in and of itself on Hulu, I would suggest everyone check that out. It was actually recommended to me by one of our Instagram followers. Amazing. It was just really something special. Different, but special. Oh, by the way, Tony Scott, I just saw the Will Smith movie there. He did rewatch that Enemy of the State. Yeah. Enemy State. Another great rewatch movie. Great movie. He’s got those movies where I think I’m not huge on directors or something like that, obviously. But if you started watching something, you’d be like, oh, this is Tony Scott movie. It’s very obvious that’s Tony Scott unstoppable was one of my least favorite movies that’s on my list. I don’t want to spoil for you, but the antagonist of that movie, the sole antagonist, is a train. That’s the antagonist. So just like, we got to stop this train. It sounds unstoppable to me. I was watching. I was like, wait, is there any part of the story and it’s just Denzel being like, this train needs to stop, man. All right, well, I’m still going to watch it. A lot of people liked it, so I don’t know what people liked about it. I can’t watch that movie again, so let’s jump into what we’re reading next. I believe it’s your pick this time. So you want to take it away? Yeah, well, you hadn’t read any Stephen King, correct? No, I have not. Okay. And the only Stephen King I have read was The Stand, which is incredible. Most of the Gunslinger series. I guess The Gunslinger is the first one. It’s the Dark Tower series is the actual name of the series. Both great. Both different. I think he’s mostly known for, like, horror type books, and we’re going to try to stay away from that. And actually the band that does our intro for us, one of their players there. The basis suggested we check out Different Seasons, which is actually a book I was supposed to read in high school but didn’t and includes several of his novellas. And that being Shawshank Redemption, which I’m sure a lot of people are familiar with. Apt pupil. The body, which was made into stand by me and actually one I haven’t heard of. So I’m excited for that. But yeah, we’re going to jump into that and get into some Stephen King. See what happens with that. I’m actually really excited for it. Yeah, me too. Hit us up again at Buddy Book Club on Twitter. Buddy Book Club Podcast on IG Buddy Book Club podcast at gmail. Com for emails. Alright. Well, good chat, buddy. We’ll catch you next time. Take care. Bye now.

The buddies read the first half of The Hunting Party and discuss possible murderers and murderees.  They dive deep into killer babies,  British slang, red herrings (fish, not birds) and casting the Hunting Party movie.

Transcript for SEO Purposes 🙂

All right. Welcome back to another installment of the Buddy Book Club. Thanks for checking us out. And thanks to pacecar Joe for the intro music. I’m Dylan here with my good buddy Keith. We’re going to deep dive into some popular books. Probably not going to be your typical book club. We’re not here to discuss symbolism and motifs. We’re keeping it light hearted and fun. That being said. Keith, how are you doing? And what are we reading this time around? I’m a little disappointed you didn’t give me a nickname there. I was expecting one. Oh, shit. I forgot about that. All right. Your wizard of Words. There we go. All right, we’re back. Thank you. We are reading The Hunting party today. I listened to the audiobook, so we read it. Lucy Foley? Yes. Lucy, this is a modern murder mystery novel. So not your Agatha Christie, but it’s going to be a little more modern. You know, I think that was her goal here. I think she’s got five books out, all of them written since 2015. This being her third. You’ve read another one of her books, right? The guest list. And it’s very similar to this. It’s like you said, the original. Who done it type stuff? And I’d never read anything like that. And so I’m right into it. Well, I was going to ask, what’s your experience with these kind of. I mean, really, my experience with this is The Hardy Boys. That’s as close as I have anything, because my mom used to if I read five Hardy Boys books, she would buy me a Nintendo 64 game. So this is a British novel. Lucie Foley is British. I’m reading the physical book and like, you alluded to you’re listening to the audiobook. So we’re going to come at it from a little bit of different angles. Sometimes I feel like the audiobooks don’t do the books justice. I don’t think that’s the case this time around, because the way this book is written is like from each person’s perspective or at least a few of them. So is the audiobook different actors doing different? Yeah. Which is nice. Yeah. Then you can kind of get the personality of the person. So, for instance, Miranda, by listening to it, you’re like, this woman seems kind of like a bitch, right? You can kind of get that through the audio of her talking, whereas an Emma is like soft spoken, kind of preserved. So instantly you kind of learn the character through the voice, which really helps. Whereas obviously, sometimes you have to kind of make that up in your head. Cool. So before we dive into The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley, I think it’s important because we’re going to have a nice conversation here is to not be parched. No one wants to be parched when you’re having a nice, long, intelligent conversation. Seemingly intelligent. So normally we like to have a cocktail or drink based on the content of the book, but Lucy seems to like to imbibe herself, so she wrote in a few different drinks for us within the context of this book. So I don’t know if you caught any of these, but one option is kava. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with that. It’s a sparkling wine, but one of the characters in the book says that it tastes like vomit, so I’m going to pass on that Dom Perignon, as the classic people call it. Our main characters in this book bought a case of it with them on vacation, which is twelve bottles. I mean, I think a bottle of Dom is like $150. So these guys, have you ever had a bottle of Dom? I’ve had some Dom. I haven’t. Okay. Can you tell the difference at all? I don’t have that kind of palace. Give me the MoWay or whatever. Yeah, a little OJ in there. Easy peasy. Can’t remember what the crappy one is that you used to drink back in the day, like Krug or something like that. Whatever. But I’m not going to spend $150 on a bottle of champagne while we discussed. So I’m going to pass on that as well. Another one is the Boulevard Deer, which is a delightful sounding drink with one part bourbon to half part for vermouth and Campari. You garnish that with an Orange Peel. So that sounds delightful. I think if someone to take a hit the pause button and go make one of those, they should. But the only problem is this book is set in Scotland. So if you’re drinking bourbon in Scotland, it just seems absurd sacrilegious, right? Absolutely. Yeah. You got to go Scotch. Maybe on the rocks, maybe a little water in there. I know Scotch is a tough thing to do, especially in the wintertime, which is the setting which kind of brings us right into that. But they’re basically on this hunting Lodge grounds that’s, like deserted. That’s just getting shitloads of snow freezing. The only thing you can drink there is Scotch to warm you up, right? Agreed. So we’re going with Scotch. Pour yourself a little Scotch and water if you want single malt. Ideally, single. This will be released on Monday morning. So continue to use that advice on Monday morning as well. That’s fine. All right. Well, now that we’ve got our beverages squared away, let’s get into the book. The gist of hunting party is pretty much nine friends in New Year’s Eve. That is secluded estate in the Scottish Highlands. They’re staying in a Lodge there. This is their annual holiday trip that they do every year. This time around, it get a little flip turned upside down when one of the friends is murdered. To add to the tension, a snowstorm comes out of nowhere, shutting down all routes in and out of the estate. The group is now locked in with a murderer in their midst. Scottish Highlands murder in the midst that checks out for me so far. I’m digging it with that kind of stuff. But Keith minus the murdering. Is this your type of New Year’s Eve holiday? I think New Year’s Eve is not one you should be spending with a couple’s retreat. That’s just my opinion. I feel like couple’s retreat is meant for off at a beach location. Off, like where everyone can do their own thing kind of thing, right? You can go off, fuck around. You come back, you have a nice little barbecue, everyone gets drinks going. This is like you get stuck in a house with everyone, nothing to do, and everyone’s thorns are showing, and you basically just see couples worse things. That sounds fucking miserable to me. This is not what you want to do on New Year’s Eve, right? Am I wrong with that? I couldn’t disagree with you. More with you. More. Wow. Okay. This place sounds sick. It’s the big fire in the main hall. Cozy chairs, stag heads on the wall, tons of board games. I mean, the place has an entire glass facade, which is kind of creepy. So good setting for a murder mystery. But it reminds me of there was this really crappy movie called 13 Ghosts that came out with Shannon Elizabeth back in the day horror movie. But the house was all made of glass and it was pretty cool looking. So it kind of reminds me of that. I’m hoping Lucifer, what’s missing here is the skiing. So that’s where you get away for the day, where they don’t have anything, right. At least from the beginning part. So if you’re just stuck inside and there’s nothing to do, I’m just imagining having to go on a trip with some of these characters, this would be miserable. This would not be fun. I mean, they’re going to play twister and stuff like this seem fun enough. That’s true. They were popping pills, playing twister. That’s fair sexual groping. But yeah, also house party on New Year’s Eve. Better than nightclub. Oh, no club thousand percent. Well, that’s what I was saying. I feel like it’s one of the two. You either have a fucking Ripper and you have a huge house party with like that’s when you’re College and post College days. Or if you’re with couples, I feel like it’s a ski resort. Or you’re like a beach weekend. Maybe I’m just the old man, but especially as a single guy, I feel like I have even more stakeholders. This would be the worst for a single guy, but I disagree. I’d be down. They obviously decided to pile their money together, buying a ton of food, which I love to do. Buy a shit ton of food, make some great meals. You’re Emma. You’re Emma. In this book, I am. Maybe I’m the murderer. Oh, okay. So like we said, this is these nine friends, four sets of couples, and then Katie, who’s the odd one out. So it’s the nine of them. They think they have this place booked alone, but actually, there’s an Icelandic couple as well who’s staying there, as well as the gamekeeper. Who Doug the gamekeeper, and then the caretaker of the Lodge, who also kind of like runs the place. Heather, there’s one other guy. I’m not going to even consider him into this because he’s not really in the story yet, but just for listeners out there, we’re going to go through the first half of this book. We’re not going to go through the whole thing this time around because this is a murder mystery. So we want to kind of bounce some ideas off each other. That’s kind of the fun part of having a murder mystery is trying to guessing, trying to tie the threads together. So it’s going to be different than our other podcast that we have out there. So check in next week, and we’ll do the second half. So with that being said, we don’t know halfway through the book, which is where we stopped. We stopped at chapter 25 after chapter 25. We don’t know at this point who was murdered. They open it up because you have to get people hooked. So they open it up with them finding the dead person. The book kind of takes place, like we said in first person perspective, and it takes place after the body was found. And then they kind of rewind three days to when everyone’s showing up at the Lodge. So we don’t know who the murderer is, obviously, and we don’t know who was murdered. But we’re going to get some ideas out there based on some of the clues that Lucy has given us throughout this 1st, 150 pages or probably 4 hours in your audiobook. I don’t know exactly. There you go. So I think we start off at the top. Who do you think was killed? Who was it going right into it? Yeah. First off, I’m not really sure if it’s a guy or girl. I thought it was a guy, but I think we had to debate on that guy or girl. This is why we don’t do really intelligent books, because our reading comprehension level is so bad that we came out of this both thinking a different sex had died. I thought it was a woman. You thought it was a guy? Yeah, that’s part of the mystery. I think. I don’t know if she meant to do that, but maybe that’s part of the mystery. Okay, so let’s act as if it could be either. Okay, perfect. Okay. So let’s go over. I think getting a brief overview of the characters, too. We’ll kind of talk our way into this. So I think the main focus of the book so far has been on Miranda. Or at least I feel like she’s the strongest personality there, which I don’t know. The thing is, I haven’t read enough murder mysteries to know is that the person that’s going to be or not. But I think somehow she’s either going to be the killer or dead. That’s one of the two. That’s the first person I point to. The other person that I think is another big issue is Katie. There’s something up with her. And one of the random questions I had for what needs to be answered is, what’s up with Katie? Why is she being so weird to Miranda? Why is she being so stand offish? Obviously, she’s a loner, but there’s something going on with her that I think in the second half is going to be revealed. That’s going to be like, my boyfriend, bro. She’s the only one without she’s you on this trip, and she’s fucking pissed. This would be you that’s you don’t realize. Oh, you said I would be Emma earlier because the food thing. So I would be Emma. Plus, Katie and I would be Debbie Downer. So Katie at the beginning, like, they’re getting on the train to go up there, and there’s one offseat. So every seat is for a couple, and there’s one seat that’s not in the same car, and she gets all pissed, and it’s like, I’ll take that seat, like, playing the victim. It’s like, Hon, you’re the only single person, right? I get it. It sucks. But you’re going to take that seat. It’s just the way it goes. Yeah. Stop whining about that shit. Who cares? Yes, she’s like, oh, I’m not friends with my friends anymore because I’m a big time lawyer. I’m trying to make partner. It’s like, okay, we all have choices in life. Do you want to be the partner or do you want to hang out with your friends? She’s got some serious FOMO, and it’s also like, her relationships. Is it that big of a deal to be like, hey, excuse me. Do you mind changing seats with me, or I’m going to sit in the aisle and drink with my friends this whole time on those trains. Which one do you want? Right? That’s an easy choice for the people there. I don’t even know why. It’s not even a big deal. It shouldn’t even be part of the story. Just shut the fuck up, Katie, and just, like, just figure it out, right? Yeah. It definitely shows some strife between her and the rest of the group and alienates her for sure. Yeah, I will 100% agree that Miranda is the focal point of the story so far. I think it’s because she’s kind of the centerpiece for everyone in the party. Not only is she like, Gregarious and beautiful, but she also like her, Katie and Samaria. I think that’s a girl’s name Samira. Samira, her. Katie and Samira were like, best friends, and this is all College friends and then their significant other. So something we can all relate to. If you have a good group of friends and then people start getting married or coupling up, those other people come into the group. And there is like a weird learning to feel the vibe of the group phase, which they will get into with Emma. But Miranda is definitely the focal point because she kind of touches everyone in the group emotionally and maybe physically. Yeah. And I think we could just right off the bat, eliminate certain people. So Bo and Nick are literally the only thing they talk about them is that they’re gay and that one of them is American. I don’t think they had any other part of the story. Bo is a lover of drugs. All right, don’t ever forget. I don’t remember that being mentioned. That heavy. I assume it was Bo Jackson. Is that right? Because I don’t know any other bows. Definitely. Bow bows are recovering addict. Oh, okay, that’s right. But they’re literally nothing part of the story. I think you cross them off the list. If they’re actually involved, then that’s going to be the biggest shock. The random European couple or Icelandic couple. Those are just red herrings, right? They’re just in there just to mix it up. They have nothing to do with anything. Right? Would you agree with that? I don’t know. I like them. That’s all I’m saying. Okay. You like them for the murder or the death? No, I just like them. They’re my kind of people. No, I’m not that’s neither here nor there. I agree with that. Let’s focus on who’s dead, right? Okay. Yeah. I’m going to say it’s Miranda. She’s too front and center. Too much to the point. She has to be. It has to be. It has to be her. She’s the central person in the group. So more people have things not to like about her, just because the more you get to know people, the more you start to dislike them. And if it’s a guy, which the way I read it, Miranda, she’s also like the reverse Austin Powers. Women want to be her, and men want to be with her. And with that being said, jealousy and lust are two powerful murder motivators. Not only seven deadly sins, jealousy, lost or envy, I guess, is one. Yeah. So I don’t even really want to dive too much really into who’s dead, because I think the only real potential is her, considering they put so much time into her in the first half of the book. I guess if we’re going to talk about other potentials, it could be Julian, her husband. Yeah. Insider trading. I mean, come on. Is that what we’re worried about? You’re involved in some insider trading and is really upset about it. And Mark knows. Well, let me bring that up real quick, because I think that’s important. Obviously, Mark is like, I know something that you don’t know the Miranda this whole time, but I don’t think that is what it is. It’s obviously something else, right? Because it’s never been told or rated. Is that the word or rated? That actually he keeps like, I know something and she’s like, I’m not fucking listening to you, which is like always you didn’t want to listen to me. That’s like a common truth. I feel like it’s possible that Mark’s feeling that he knows something about Julian. Yeah, that’s different. It’s the insider trading thing. Yeah, I don’t think it is. Okay. Yes, but yeah, I think those are the only two that you circle again. We’re going to find out more about these characters, which will probably change their mind. But first half everything is pointing towards Miranda. Yeah, I think the only other potentials in the women factor are Emma or Katie. Katie could die considering she’s kind of a loner and seems to she was alone. So it’s possible she was murdered because murder someone is when they’re alone. And Emma who will get into Emma’s a very interesting character in this. So I guess the next thing that I really want to move on to is the whole point of this, you know, who killed whoever this person is. And I’d like to do it in a ranking fashion from least likely to most likely. So we’ll do a countdown top ten QB’s of all time. Except our countdown is who’s likely to murder someone QB story white likely to be killing someone QB? Yeah, exactly. Okay. Alright. Who’s likely? I’ll start it off with my last place person, which is Heather. Heather is the sex starved caretaker. We get inside her head during the narrative and the only few people that we hear the story from in the present where the body’s been found is her and Doug, the game warden or gamekeeper or whatever you want to call them. So when we’re in her head at this point she’s like begging for the body not to be in the lock, which is Scottish for Lake. So she’s begging for it not to be in the Lake because that’s her happy place. And so unless she has some sort of split personality disorder, it’s not her simple as that. Okay, well, not so fast, my friend. To quote her. Contrary, I always never rule out anyone that has a dark past, whereas Heather, I know she was a doctor or nurse or some sort of Er person paramedic man and her husband. Was it husband or boyfriend? I kind of missed that. I think Jamie, I believe his name was. Yeah, like died as a firefighter, which I think somehow he came to the Er or something. Something happened there, but I’m just guessing just based on the way she writes that there’s going to be some other dots connected somehow that’s connected to other people in this group. What? I’m going to go on a little bit later on. So I’m not moving her there. Very least likely is going to be the random European couple, aka the red herrings. Like I said, also, did you know red herrings are not birds? It’s a fish. Yeah, I know. Idea that the fish. I thought it was a bird for sure. I thought I was like, oh, I’m distracted by those birds over there when really? What are the red herrings? I think I ended up actually looking it up because I thought it was okay. This is good. What is it? Yeah, the origins are from an English journalist, William Colbert, a presumably official story about how he used red herrings as a boy to throw hounds off the scent of a hair. Oh, yeah, I like it. Yeah. Also other herring facts. Dead herrings are what they usually use to bait lobster traps, at least in the New England area. Oh, great. Today I learned great stuff here. Anyways, that is my number. Is that eleven or that’s the Icelandic phone. The couple. They’re not yours. They’re eleven and ten. I’m just going to say that they’re about halfway down my list. Wow. Okay. Yeah, we’re getting some difference. We know Miranda is dead. It’s just a matter now who killed her? Yeah. I mean, this is usually the movie midsomar or mid summer or whatever. No, I heard that’s kind of freaky good movie. Okay, they’re like the mid Somar bloodlusting sex scenes. So, I mean, what else gets American? In other words, is that what you’re saying? Yeah, they’re down to murder, for sure. Plus, like, the guy at dinner is talking about how the Hunt, the thrill of the Hunt, getting your blood up. I don’t think it’s actually them, but they could actually just be murderers. They murdered a bunch of people. It’s just not Miranda. Exactly. We’ll agree there. Okay. All right. So who’s your second least likely. I think I already referenced it, but Bo and Nick, they don’t add anything to the story. They’re very low down on my list as well for killers. Okay, they’re not at the bottom of my list. They’re close to the bottom. Why they’re not at the bottom is because Bo knows that Miranda has got that big bag of drugs and he’s got the itch. He’s a drug addict. So maybe he’s like, Yo, I’m just going to murder this chick because I need all the ecstasy right now. That would be very simple. But, yeah, I agree with that. Why can’t it be a simple answer? Yeah, it could be my second least likely to be the murderer behind Heather is Priya. Priya is the baby. I was like, the car they drove in. What do you mean, no, Priya is Giles and Samira’s baby. Okay. And thanks to some particularly Macabre research, supposedly, the Internet tells me no one under the age of four has ever murdered someone. So considering that that would be the best list of all time, the baby is like, I don’t know, a year old, maybe. So it’s probably not her. But it’s not impossible. That is a great time. Who does it? We have to consider everyone. And can I get into my read between the lines that you bring that up? Yeah, of course. This book is literally all about having kids at the fucking worst, right? That’s literally the whole sentiment of this book. Samaria and Giles are the worst two characters. We always talk about bad characters. Samara comes in and is like, oh, I have a kid. I have a kid. And then it’s rubbing in Miranda’s face, and then she’s like, guilt tripping everyone that’s drinking or doing drugs around her, like, there’s only one way to go in this type of group setting. If you have a kid and it’s to be that person that’s, like, Yo, get fucked up for me. Let’s go. And then you’re like, encouraging everyone. Yeah, we know you have to feed the kid and you have to do all that shit. You just keep that quiet. You don’t fucking complain about. You don’t do anything. This is a group trip. Nobody wants to give the shit about your fucking kid, Prius. Okay. Drive that thing somewhere else. You like that? Yeah. I think that’s three between the lines there, too. I did read that between every single line. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. It’s more Samira the mom. I think there’s two kinds of parents out there. There’s the kind of parents who, like, when their kids six months old, they like, leave it with their parents and they go on vacation and they don’t think about it. And then there’s the other kind of parents who couldn’t possibly think of leaving their child anywhere ever. Which is what Samira seems to be like. And the worst part is that both of these sets of parents look down on the other. But I totally agree. The buzz kill, unfortunately, is fine. I have no problem if someone’s like, I just had to catch. I’m not going on this New Year’s Eve trip. It’s like, that makes sense. But you can’t then come and be that person. You just can’t. You can’t do it. You can’t do both. It does take away from it. But unfortunately, that’s just the way it is. I have kids. Susie Foley knows what she’s doing. She put that in there, and I appreciate it. Good color. Okay. So I’m assuming because of that, you think Samira is probably not a murderer, right? She would be next on my list and Giles. But if she were dead, I wouldn’t be that upset about it. I mean, what? Yikes, dude, that kid is going to grow up without a mom that’s fucked up. Well, the one thing we can’t agree on is both of those people were next on my list. It was Giles and Samira. Samira is not leaving that baby’s side long enough to kill anyone. And she carries the baby monitor around with her so she couldn’t sneak up on anyone because that thing’s crackling. And Giles actually seems like a great dude. Giles is the best, the number one guy in this group you want to hang out with tell me more. Giles. He’s aging a little early. He’s losing a little hair on the top, but he just likes to have a good time. He just wants to go out there and laugh. He wants to crack jokes. He wants to make fun of people in a friendly manner. He’s a good hang. I tried a new name with Giles, too. It’s a solid name. It’s a very underutilized name as well. I’m trying to think of Giles. Isn’t he, like, a double seven movie or something? I’m trying to think about what that name comes from. That’s James Bond. Actually, no, but I think Giles wants to take the Ecstasy and Mirror kind of gives them the side eye. It’s just the worst. I agree. But you know what? It’s what he’s signed up for. And at the same time, he’s the kind of guy who’s not going to resent her for that. He’s like, I get it. I got a kid, and I appreciate it. So overall, he seems like a level headed, cool guy. Maybe a murderer, though. That’s something you put down in your stomach, and then it comes out and you murder someone. Yeah. Maybe he’s been holding back this huge love for Miranda. Like everyone else. He never let it out. And he’s an absolute psychopath. Yeah. Okay. They’re on my list. Nick and Bo for me, was next. So let’s start getting into our top half because I think we’re in the top half here. Who’s next on your list for the murder? Yeah, I would say. And I coupled them together, so I don’t know if that’s how you did it, but I would say Emma and Mark. Emma just seems her disposition is too friendly. And then if anyone, I would say Emma is above Mark for killing Mark. There’s two obvious choice. In my opinion. He’s already shown violent streaks. I don’t think he would. They’re already setting him up to be like a murderer, which makes me right away think it can’t be him. You know what I mean? It’s almost too obvious. Okay, so Mark, being this low on your list blows my gourd. And I think you’re saying the only reason why he’s this low on your list is because they’re paying him to be the most obvious. Exactly. You can’t take the person that he’s violent. He does all these things that makes me think the opposite. You know what I’m saying? You got to re out. Think yourself. You can’t go with what makes sense. You have to go the opposite. Mark and AMA are my number one and number two. Really? Oh, okay. Simple as that. I mean, obviously, Mark a Cook to Noah Cook mine. Shout out, buddy Ranch. Mark is the most obvious. But I don’t think just because he’s the most obvious, we should immediately pass it up because who knows what else we have in store for us. But I’ll get into that once we get into my top ones. But my next on the list after Nick and Bo, is Katie, Katie the loner. Okay, murderers are often single people. I just made that up, but I’m sticking with it. I’m pretty sure our spouse is the most likely to be murdered. But anyway, I’m talking about, like, not like, serial killers. Yeah. Okay. So Katie’s, next time I list, and the only thing is murders are often single. She’s a lawyer. I guess you could know the law and how to get away with it. So this could be, like a big plan for her. But it doesn’t seem like she has enough motive. She’s just kind of sad. So this seems horrible. But if she was going to kill anyone, it seems like she’d probably kill herself. Don’t fucking cut that because it’s true. You’re not wrong. I just don’t think she has enough motive to hurt anyone else physically. Okay. I had her as number one. I think I already mentioned it, but I think Katie and Miranda, there is a weird relationship there, which we don’t normally know what’s going on. And there’s something going on there where Katie, I feel like is going to snap or something’s going to happen, or Miranda is going to snap, and it’s going to force Kate to do something. That’s what I’m leaning towards right now. Okay. So Katie is your number one. After we finish this list, I want to come back to that. So remind me. Okay. I don’t know if we want to get it now, but Miranda stalker, I think, is very important to yeah, bring it before we get to the killer. I think so. Part of this whole thing is that Miranda has a stalker, and the stalker was with her throughout College and actually after College. But then in the last couple of years has gone away, and the stalker would sneak into her apartment and steal things and then send them back to her with notes. And I think she has this weird relationship with her stalker, where it’s like she likes the fact that someone likes her that much, but is also super creeped out by it. She plays it off like it’s no big deal to her friends, but personally, it’s traumatic. I mean, how could they not be after Katie, for me, is Miranda. So the only problem is we’re working on the premise that Miranda is the dead person. So I think this is I don’t know if it’s an issue of where we stopped in the book or the fact that the book just hasn’t revealed it yet, and it could potentially not even be revealed until the last 20 pages. We have no idea. So based on the way we want to do this, we unfortunately, have to work off some assumptions of who’s dead. But I think either way, either Miranda stalker is the murderer or the murderer personally. So the next on my list was Miranda herself. If she’s not the murdered person, then she could definitely be the murderer. I mean, she has it all except for a good job. And murdering is technically a job. So that would kind of be the last thing she needs in life a job. And she got one murdering people. Yeah. Seemingly, she doesn’t seem very good at it because she left a lot of obvious traits. Like, there’s a lot of ways you could kill someone in this place. It seems like. But strangling them doesn’t seem like the best way to do it now. Yes. Which seems like the way the body, based on what we know so far, it seems like that was the case. Yeah, it seems like she wouldn’t be very good at that. That’s what she said. Okay, so who’s next on your list? After you had Emma and Mark, I had Miranda in the same spot. So I had Miranda then Julian above her, and then I think we covered everyone. But then that would be Katie is the number one. So it’d be Katie number one. Julian number two. Miranda number three. And Julian is Miranda’s husband. He’s involved in the insider trading. He won’t have sex with his beautiful wife, even when he’s on ecstasy. So his priorities are definitely screwed up. So if his priorities are screwed up, then he could definitely murder someone. That’s my thought process. Yeah. And I also would tie that in with Mark has some secret over him as well that we don’t know. There’s something else dark there that I think is going to be reeled later, and it’s going to paint the pictures. Julian is not like he’s obviously already being painted as not someone. That’s not great. But now it’s even more so I would say, once that gets revealed. So what about Doug? Doug’s the gamekeeper. He kind of. Yeah, the loner. What do you think, Doug? He’s an ex Marine. Excuse me? Once a Marine. Always a Marine. So he’s a Marine. He’s got some serious PTSD. I mean, he’s seen some shit. He’s done some shit. So what’s one more murder under the belt. I think he falls into the Mark category as like, also, we know in the present tense that he found the body, so I don’t know if that’s what he says. He found the body. That could be the case there. I picture Doug as the most Scottish person. I think I have the best movie character for him. Possible. I don’t think you can beat me on this one, but if it’s a young Sean Connery, then I’m okay with it. That is actually. Damn it. All right, well, I’m just going to be on mine. Mine. Mine was Tom Hardy who doesn’t talk over and just have those like, I’m going to murder you. Eyes. I’ve seen things. Eyes. You know what I mean? I think he’s just perfect for him, and he barely talks. So that works either way. But, yeah, I think we need to find out what Doug’s past is. We obviously know it’s dark. He obviously came back from the war, I think. Right. And then something else happened where he got basically like, it sounds like they gave him a pass because he was a soldier, and then he was like, all right, well, they’re going to give me a pass. I got to go in like, prison myself pretty much. Yeah. I don’t know if it was from that. I think he did three scores. I don’t know if it’s from that or like what he saw overseas that affected him, but definitely has potential for murder. Yeah. And he trips sex, apparently because everyone wants to bang them. That’s where Tom Hardy has that like I could live out in a cabin by myself, but come out and every single girl wants to bang me. Still look, he’s like Jacked with translucent Scottish skin. Heather sees him jumping into the lock in the middle of the winter to go swimming. So do we need to bring the segment out there? Did you get a boner? I got a boner. I mean, Heather sure did. She said afterwards that she looked at him, felt a little ashamed, not super ashamed because she hit the bathtub and did a little scratching on the ones and twos and had her first orgasm in a year. So she says, so good for her and good for Doug. Really? I think there are two sex starved characters in this book, and it just seems like if this was a romcom, they would be hooking up at the end and realize they love each other. Before I get into my top two, I want to take a brief discussion about the Highland River. There’s been some talk in the book of the serial killer who’s in the Scottish Highlands murdering people, and he’s been on a tear or assuming he because most serial killers are. Why couldn’t it be this person that we don’t even know existed yet in the Highland River? Interesting. So you’re saying it could be Doug? Well, someone’s been roving around the Scottish Highlands, murdering people. The book set in Scotland, and there’s a murder in the book. So all the boxes are checked. I mean, this is actually directly taken. I’m pretty sure, from the Yorkshire River, which is a real person. I’m not going to say the guy’s name because we don’t promote serial killers on this podcast. Yeah, we never have never will. He killed 13 women, at least proven to kill at least 13 women in the 70s and the 80s. It’s actually on Netflix. Now there’s a documentary. It’s called The Ripper, and it’s pretty good. So this was the Yorkshire Ripper, and also in the UK. I’m pretty sure that she took that idea and kind of carried it over into creating the Highland River. So I think it could be a potential suspect. It could also be like, the person who did this murder could be one of the friends who could also be the Highland River. It could be very Scooby Doo for scuba Doo esque. I thought it was an ode to the Scranton Strangler from the office. That’s why I honestly was thinking it was similar to yes, obviously it was just like, kind of a passing comment. Everyone talks about it’s just fucking Toby

Participant #1:

here’s. The thing was Prius accounted for at this point. Do we not know Prius hasn’t gone on a killing streak or no, the baby. Yeah, Prius. I still don’t know the gender of that baby. You get a small enough knife or I don’t know if it’s hands are big enough to strangle, so maybe they just get a good view. Interesting. Okay. My one and two, like I said before, is Emma and Mark, who are a couple. Mark is their friend from College, and Emma is the new girlfriend. So as we talked about, it’s hard when you’re new to a group to kind of assimilate into that group. So that’s kind of her role in this story. And we do get some first person narrative from her. We don’t get first person narrative from everyone. So Emma’s kind of thing is she wants to fit in. She wants to be part of the group. She also wants to be just like Miranda. I think someone commented at the dinner table. I think it was Doug that. Well, he didn’t say it at the dinner table, but his thoughts was like, Emma looks just like a smaller uglier or less pretty. Let’s say less pretty version of Miranda. She has a bleached blonde hair to look like. Miranda even says she wants to ask Miranda what her nail Polish color is because she wants to have that too. So she’s, like, really trying to be Miranda. And she’s also trying to please everyone else by getting like, she set up this place and she wants everyone to be happy and have fun. And she got all the food. And she’s going to make this elaborate meal a brief pause for the meal she’s trying to create. She’s trying to do, like, beef Wellington. As someone who likes to Cook for a big group, don’t overshoot. Just make good food. If you try to make a beef Wellington and the pastry starts slipping off the beef, especially this type of trip, everyone’s getting hammered and doing drugs like a good burger goes a long way here. I don’t think you need to fucking roll out a meal that people will never forget. Yeah. You’re going to ruin your vacation by spending three days in the kitchen. Come on. But also the reason. So on the one hand, I definitely completely sympathize with Emma trying to fit in. I don’t think she’s trying to necessarily be more in. I think she’s just, like, trying to ingratiate herself with her, right? She’s like, hey, there was that brief moment where I think it was Doug who was saying it and he was like, this looks like she’s trying to be exactly like her, like, wear the same clothes. Okay, look like her. That’s the point. But kind of creepy. The psychopath’s vibes that if you want to say, Emma’s the killer, the one thing you point to is Katie’s, like, helping her cut meat, and she just starts bleeding on it because Katie is a psychopath. Also, that’s why I kind of have her as a talk car. But Emma is like, oh, my God, you got cut, and she’s like, this motherfucking bitch messed up my cooking. That’s her first thought. She wasn’t like, oh, my God. This chicks bleeding everywhere. She was like, yeah, damn right. You just ruined my life. What if I made a great meal and someone decided to bleed on it? And people are like, oh, I’m not going to eat it now. It’s like a whatever. Eat some blood B that’s fucked up. Don’t ruin my meal. So I’m with them. But my only trepidation with her not being the killer, being the killer, I guess, is that people who Cook for their loved ones, they can’t be murderers. You heard it here first. Detectives that are listening to this podcast. Yeah, and my number one is Mark. We talked about how he’s the most obvious, and he’s the most obvious because he’s got a super short fuse. He comes from a physically abusive household. His father used to beat him. He smashes pictures that he doesn’t like against the wall. Did you get that line in there? No talking about how when they get angry, sometimes, like, there was a picture on the wall that he didn’t like, so he smashed it. All right, bro, either you’re, like, a huge art critic or, like, you’re really short fuse. He wasn’t super big because he’s a rugby player. Him and Julian, he wasn’t super big and then got super big by drinking protein shakes. Yes, he’s written up. All right, let’s be serious. This guy is. So he’s got the Royal rage. And also Emma notes that he looks quite similar when he’s turned on as when he’s angry. That’s fucked up. What? But Emma also likes that. So she’s a psychopath. Hence my number one and number two. Okay, all right, I’m moving Emma up the rankings. Now that I’m thinking it out and she’s a ride or die, she’s like, if Mark killed the person right in front of her, she’d be like, all right, as long as you didn’t fuck up my meal and let me cover up for you, don’t put the blood on the meat. Also, let’s have sex because you have that look in your life. He’s like, no, this is my murder look. And she’s like, I can’t tell the difference. So that’s creepy enough. All right, so that’s our cast of characters, and that’s who we think. So give me again. Your top three. Yeah, I had Katie one, Julian, two, Miranda three. Okay, I have Mark one, it’s Emma one, Emma one, and Mark two, Julian three. That’s mine. So I guess let’s talk about the stalker. Who do you think is Miranda’s stalker? Because the stalker has to be here, right? Yeah, I think. Well, you go first. I thought we’re going to have the same exact thing here, but I want to hear your take first. I think mine might be a little bit more out of left field, but I thought it wasn’t at all. Okay, well, my number one for the stalker is the same as my number one for the killer. And it’s Emma. Her stalker is definitely Emma. There’s no question in my mind, but she didn’t know her in College. Yeah, exactly.

Participant #1:

Okay. She knew her, but no one knew that she knew her. Okay, so a couple of points here. The stocking stopped a couple of years ago. Emma came into the picture a couple of years ago. Coincidence. Also, the locked in the bathroom store that sold it for me. That was like, okay, there’s like, a point when Emma, when she’s all fucked up on the drugs, is like, oh, Miranda, remember that time when you got locked in the bathroom at that house party? That was crazy. And Miranda was like, oh, what are you waiting there years ago? And she was like, oh, no, that must have happened a couple of years. Like, Emma kind of tried to slide in, like, oh, no, that happened a year ago and whatever. And then they moved off of it. So Emma was like, this. She looked totally different. That’s why she’s trying to look like Miranda now, but she used to be, like, black haired, totally different looking creep. They make it seem like the stalker is a man purposely because the stalker is not a man. It’s a woman. And it’s Emma done. Deal. All right, well, we’re a little bit off there. I’m going to say the stalker is also a woman, and his number three on my list. The Miranda stalker is Miranda. All right, hear me out. First off, she’s definitely bipolar because she’s like, yeah, I don’t remember taking these pictures at all. And there’s all these groups of friends I’ve had that I don’t know them at all. She’s leaving herself notes when she does things bad. She’s like, you shouldn’t have stolen that type of thing, or she does things where she cheats and then throws it away. There’s no possible way anyone can do that except for herself. Everything points to her doing this to herself, not someone else stalking her in doing this and everything. It just seems like that she’s talking about is someone that’s bipolar and not someone that is sneaking in and misplacing something for her and then getting it back to her. That just sounds really off. So I think interesting that I also think is why Katie is upset with her because she went to her bipolar things and went off on her or something like that. And I also think, Mark, I don’t know if this is right, but I feel like Mark groped her for some reason, but that might have been because they’ve already done something where she doesn’t remember it. That’s what I’m it just seems so weird that would have happened, like, that very moment. Oh, this is very momento. It’s a little fight club esque is what I’m thinking. I don’t hate it. You like that? I thought you were thinking the same thing. I was like, yeah, we’re on the same path. No, not at all. But I don’t hate that at all. That’s interesting. I think that it’s possible. How would they know that all this stuff is important to her? That’s, like, pretty personal. She’s like, yeah, that I went up to the mall and I stole something and then someone else stole it back and was like, don’t steal. And I was like, Wait, what? Subconscious? A lot of stuff that’s interesting there. I like it. I like it a lot, although the stalkers Emma, but either way, maybe Emma and Marina are the same person. Okay. One other unanswered question I had. They talked about this trip to Ibiza, where the whole group went, except for Miranda, who didn’t go, and Katie wouldn’t take any drugs in a pizza, but finally let loose, took drugs one night and had sex with someone. But the next day, none of the guys were sneezing or anything, so she didn’t really know who she had sex with because it was a dark run. Who did Katie have sex with? So was that people that were at this party? I couldn’t really tell everyone. Okay, everyone was there. But Miranda okay, that I didn’t really read between the lines because I’m only reading between different things. That changes my mind. I think that’s also why Katie, I think, has some weird shit going on. Where she’s? I don’t know. Maybe Prius is Katie’s baby. Oh, shit. She had sex with Samira, and they had a baby. That’s how it works, right? I think so. I don’t know. I didn’t take any classes. Or at least they weren’t that informative. Okay. I think it was Julian. I think she had sex with Julian. Okay. And is that what Mark is? Maybe inferring, too. And so, yeah, that could be what Mark is referring, that he knows something happened, or is he implying? Yeah, definitely. Okay. So I think it was Julian, hence why no one would talk about it, or Julian wouldn’t boast about it. But Mark might have seen them. In which case, like, your best friend hooking up with your now husband in a vacation spot that you weren’t at. Come on. What’s more scandalous than that? True. That’s a really good point. And then that would also lead to why Miranda might murder Katie. If Katie is the dead person or vice versa, got you? Yeah. You’re making a lot of sense. And you’re coming with my number one where I think it’s Katie or Miranda or vice versa. So we’re on board. That actually helps my point. Good point. Dan and Miranda’s bipolar. All right, before we get into some of the other tangential parts of this conversation, do you have anything else to say about the plot lines or the murderers, murderers type of stuff? I think we covered Doug’s dark past. I don’t know what he did, but I’m guessing he, like, lit a fire or something that end up getting Heather’s husband killed or something. I don’t know. There’s definitely going to be some shit that’s going to connect the dots because there’s no reason they would put those things together or they put those in the story. Unless there’s something going on there that’s going to make you think at the end of the book. Oh, they’re the killer. They’re the killer. But I think we’ll find out, but I think I’ll be interesting. Well, I guess we can take a break for our sponsors, but before that pop quiz, hot shot. Oh, shit. Pop quiz, hot shot. There’s a bomb on a bus speed. Great movie, by the way, just when they’re on the bus after the bus, it’s kind of not that great. Also a really gnarly death at the beginning, when the guy is going up the elevator shaft, I think about it every time I go in an elevator. Oh, really? Yeah. So this pop quiz is brought to you by the British slang Emporium. All right. This is a British novel. It’s full of little British tidbits that us Yankee folk might not be familiar with. So I have a few British words in here that I’d like to see. Oh, shit. It’s funny you bring this up. I literally have as my love of the book. Is that the British talking stuff? I love it. I really do. That’s the one reason why I’m mad. I’m not listening to it. Yeah, it’s so good. Love talk British to me. I hope some of the words intertwine here, but go on. We’re going to start easy, and we’ll work from there. I think I got, like, six. So see how quickly. Oh, I get you better. Doing a British accent. Pissed. Wait, are you doing a British accent? I don’t even know what that word means. No, I’m not. Are you saying to take the piss out of someone or are you saying, no, that’s a different thing. Okay. Pissed, I think, believes. I mean, someone’s drunk, like your correct. Someone’s drunk or back. I have no idea where it came from, and neither does the Internet. But being pissed means you’re drunk. Okay, during this podcast, Keith will get pissed. All right, number two, torch. I’ll use it in a sentence. Torch Beau, Julian and Emma using the torches provided by the Lodge to light. Oh, yeah. Flashlight. I think I would have got that even without the sentence. Now that’s got it. Okay, perfect. Yes. It’s flashlight in America. Torch everywhere. In, like all other American or English speaking countries. Sorry, is that confusing? If you like, have a torch also. So they call that Firestick? No, but there’s a word for shoot. I forget now because they call that like, a lit torch or something like that. I personally, I like torch. I need better than flashlight. It doesn’t even flash. Why do we call it a flashlight? I might start using torch to mean hot that chicks torch. I kind of like that. I kind of like that, too. Yes. You can have that one. Yeah. All right. I’ll take it. But I just think in general, we should say pass through the torch. It just makes more sense. I appreciate that. And you can kind of see how the word grew because obviously they’re using torches to light the way, and then eventually someone electrifies it. Here’s. The thing, though, is that if you use that and someone is American and hands, you literally a stick that’s on fire and you grab it. That might be a bad day for you. So that’s the only issue if you start using that without if I was on a camping trip and I asked someone to pass me the torch and they handed me wood out of the fire, I would be like, this is the coolest thing. And your hand would be on fire when you grab this on the wrong end. Okay, I wouldn’t do that. All right. Next one up a little harder. Lori. Oh, I don’t know what that is. Can you hear? In a sentence? I was driving down the highway. I looked left and saw a Lori driving by like a cab. No, Lori is a large truck. So in America, we call it like a set. Was it a Lori or is it a Lori? Laurie is the word. Oh, okay. So, yeah, it’s just what they use for a truck. Okay. Not like a pickup truck, but a truck that carries around. Yeah. Okay, that makes sense. Also, the Strangler, the Yorkshire Strangler in real life was a Lori driver, so ties it all together. Interesting. Okay, next one up. Wellies, I’ll use in the sentence. They came with proper gear making the coats and Hunter. Wellies, the other lot wore looks slightly ridiculous. I don’t know. Pants. I don’t know what wellies, are close Wellington boots or American as rubber boots or galoshes named after the Wellington. I feel like. So the Hunter boots. That all the chick wears. Dollar chicks wear. That’s what they’re wearing. So they even said they came with proper gear making the coats and Hunter. Wellies, so it’s those, like, rubber boots. Next one up, Piki and didn’t use in a sentence. And then Mark decided to make some comments about the place being overrun with pikas.

Participant #1:

Yeah, I was thinking pikey is using that often. I assume it just means like a Pikeman is like a front line soldier. That’s maybe lower class. A lower class person. I mean, great thought process, but, yeah, it’s a good one. It’s a pejorative slang term for the traveling community of Great Britain in Ireland. So think of Gypsies or Brad Pitt’s character in Snatch. Okay, so would probably use in screenshot. Hogan, I would assume. Oh, 100%. Yeah, they’d be like a bunch of fucking pikas. Yeah, that sounds like a derogative term. I didn’t know what it was, but. Yeah. So it’s a Gypsy, basically. Okay. It’s possible the word came from Turnpike, the common buyway for these folks, not pikemen at all. No. Or there’s an old English verb Pica, which means to steal, which could have been the source of the phrase. Okay, interesting. I got two more for you. One quick. Here’s a sentence. I remember our teenage years blagging our way into the nightclubs. Is that, like, convincing? I guess. I don’t know. Yeah, sure. It’s to do something by trick or deception. Okay, if you didn’t use any sense, I wouldn’t have got that at all. Yeah, I like that one, though. We’re blagging all the way in there. Yeah. Sounds like some sort of sexual thing, though. Yes, it really does. And then my last one, demon definitely blagged his way to get into nightclubs. Let me tell you what. No, I was in the nightclubs and I was blagging everyone. All right. The last one we have is 6th form. 6th form. Now, when my 6th form boyfriend dumped me rather unceremoniously. Oh, is that like, grad school? I know. They were talking about certain testing or, like, third. Yeah, not bad. 6th form would be equivalent to our 12th grade or senior. Okay, so it’s not that it’s kind of interesting, especially in Canada. I know Canada, just because my family is Canadian, that high school only goes to 11th grade, and then you take your first two years of University. Are your 12th and 13th year. Interesting. Yeah. And then you go on for, like, three more years. That’s College. Then you go on three more years at University or whatever the cases. So there we go. I think you did. Overall, you did pretty well. You did pretty well. Thank you. I had a couple more that weren’t obviously words. They were just. I loved hearing them say them in the book. So the one that was fancy. Do you fancy a drink or having a shag, which we love if someone said, you want to have a shack to rotten baby. Yeah. What I didn’t like very much was swimming costume. Oh, swimming costume is horrible. And I want to start dropping these in, just like regular day. Privacy is Privacy. Privacy. And then I hate this schedule is what they say. Yeah, I don’t like that. I don’t care for it. It makes sense of how you read it, but, yeah, it sounds weird. Definitely. So schedule, I guess I would say, taking the piss out of someone is. I like that a lot. Yeah. Also, if someone’s like making fun of you or something, like having a laugh, they use that as a thing. I like that as well. There’s a lot of British Idiosyncrasies, Idioms, whatever you want to call them, but they’re great. Okay. Thanks for giving me. Great. Thank you. That’s basically what I got in high school in College. So we’re right there. We love that. All right, let’s cast this fucking movie, baby. Is this a movie or is this a TV series? Yeah. I think a TV series would be better, actually, disagree. I think you can span it out, and you can almost do, like, a Lost element of it where each episode is one character’s story almost. And you can basically span it out. You know how Lost has, like how each episode kind of ties into that character background you could almost do. This episode is specifically about Doug, where Doug is leading the story for our narrative for the present tense. And then you’re also seeing his history during that episode. Yeah. You have to expand a lot more into people’s past. You need to really get into Doug’s past. You need to get into Heather’s past. You need, like, a whole episode on the whole stalker craze and their College years. But I think it fits better for a movie. Personally, I just think this is kind of like one of those quick give it 2 hours and flesh it out most. But either way, we have unlimited budget for this cast, so don’t feel like you’re hamstrung by budgeting here. All right. Especially because the set itself is going to be pretty cheap. You just got to go to the Scottish Highlands and rent out a lot. We’re good. It mostly takes place in four different rooms. So let’s go crazy with the cast. I’m going to start with Julian Miranda’s husband, and because this is British, I went with a British cast naturally. Okay. I did half British. I think we did the same thing last time. Yeah. So for Julian, I have Charlie Hannah, which is actually he was in Green Street Hooligans and is the main character in Sons of Anarchy plays Jacks, I think is the character’s name, but I think he’s good because these guys are rugby players. He’s great looking. He’s strapping, but he’s not going to be bigger than Mark, because I think that’s important. I think Mark has to be the biggest, but he’s just a good looking but also potentially nefarious person. Interesting. I actually had him as Mark because I basically was thinking of a real person. Yeah, that’s bigger. That’s hilarious. And he can have, like, a mean streak to him, right? That’s why I kind of felt like he’d be good for that. I switched my Mark and Julian characters. Wow. Good. Who did you know for Julian had an American actor. Ben Affleck. Don’t hate it at all. Oh, yeah. He can play that, like, kind of brooding, but like, good looking dude. So I think they’d be good for that. Okay. And then because first, as you said, Mark, for Mark, I had Henry Cavill, Superman, aka. Yeah. Do you think he could be? I guess he can be mean in the Witcher, but I feel like he’s too American sweetheart type guy. Yeah, I agree. But I think you could kind of gruff him up a bit. Yeah. Do you believe that that face came from got beat up as a kid type face? Where, like, fuck that kid up in dog track. Yeah, human or Huntman. I believe that is a guy that grew up at hard times. Whereas I don’t know if I believe it for the I think you push them back. I think this is a great role for Henry Cavill. He plays the pretty boy so often for him to have this. How you can tell him on this role? It’s like, hey, you’re going to have a little bit of a dark side in here. We’re going to cast the light down on you. So you got some shadows under your eyes. You’re going to have some shit going on, and he’ll be like, okay, I can fuck that. But Mark also has to still be hot. He’s still a desirable guy. And Henry Cavill is huge. Who else you got from this cast for Miranda? And first, I do want to bring up that the weird trope that I really don’t like. Maybe it’s just a society, but they always kind of do this in movies and things like that. Where the hot bitchy girl, right? Who Miranda is? Or, like, the hot, attention seeking girl? She always kind of runs the girl group, and she’s the most important person to everyone. But only people will talk bad about her behind her back. Where if it’s a guy and it’s the hot goodlooking guy that’s arrogant, like, the true friends will shit on him and bring him down to his level. Why does that now ever happen on the girl side? You know what I mean? Like, true friends. If you’re a good looking dude friend that goes out and does well with girls, you’re always making fun of him just because you need. I’ve always been a big proponent for women’s rights, so I get do you see what I’m saying? Like that? I do. I don’t care. This shakes the worst because she’s hot. It’s like, well, the friends should just say right to her face, like, stopping a bitch, and that would stop. That, right? I think that’s fair. But I also don’t think that’s necessarily how women operate. But all right, who do you got from? But, yeah, I just don’t leave a trip. Anyways. I had Blake Lively from have you seen a simple favor? She plays that like a perfect. She basically just runs the life of the girl from Pitch Perfect. I can’t pay her name, but she’s like, which could be Emma in this situation. Almost. Blake Lively. Not the pound. Blake Lively, but not at all. Yeah. Okay. Checking yourself. Hey, listeners out there, you can check in. Keep. Got it. I had Siena Miller for Miranda. She plays Bradley Cooper’s, love interest in both American Sniper and Burnt. She’s beautiful. She’s blonde. She’s a great actress. She could be too faced. I feel like which is important for this role. So that’s why I from her end. No, that’s good. Go on. Who else you got for Emma? I had Kira Knightley. I feel like, kind of miniature, kind of reserved. But also, I could just see her being the cooking. I had Felicity Jones. Okay. Rogue One. Oh, I was actually thinking of putting her there also. Yeah, I was very close to doing that because I think she can almost be too powerful from Rogue One. So I was like, yeah, I want to do some of this a little bit. Okay, well, if you saw a Theory of Everything, the Stephen Hawking movie. Well, she’s great in there. Kind of like the Meek wife. Not necessarily Meek because she has a lot of power in that movie, but I think she definitely hold this role. Did you have any other women? Yeah. For Katie. I had Daisy Ridley because I love her. But also, I think she could play, like, the mysterious Brown eyes. Okay, the only person I had for her was a potential. I wasn’t really in love with this, though, but the chick who plays Daenerys Targaryen. What’s that actress’s name? Amelia Clarke. Yeah. Amelia Clarke checks out for me. Okay, so I’m going to get into the guys here. Giles, right? He’s your goofy, fun loving, slightly bald guy. I didn’t have someone praying, but go on. Simon Peg. Simon Peg. It plays itself. Okay. Yeah, that’s exactly what I was saying. I didn’t know if I knew who he was, and I was like, I think it’s that one British that plays in all the comedies. And truthfully, Simon Peg could write this movie so he could be actor and writer, maybe even director. I don’t know, but he’s shown that he can do all the above so I could see him there. Okay. You didn’t have one for him. Let’s get into Doug. What do you think about Doug? Well, I already told you this, and I told you this was the best pickup I’ve ever had. Tom Hardy behind those beautiful, gorgeous eyes. You don’t know what’s back there. And that’s exactly the kind of person I was thinking. So I had two options. My first one was Michael Fastbender. Yes, good one. I liked that. I had that originally, and I went to Tom Hardy because it’s way better. But no, I’m going to. Michael Fastbender played Macbeth in Macbeth, which is a Scottish movie, so he could definitely do that. But he wasn’t my favorite. My favorite was a young Vinny Jones. So Vinny Jones is the guy from Snatch. He’s in all those movies. Why can’t the director just slip my head guy in 60 seconds? Are you serious? Come on. I haven’t seen that in a while. Actually. Get out. Yeah. Vinny Jones seems perfect for that role. Like, longer version of him. He’s kind of a caricature. I bet this guy is going to be a little bit darker than that at the end of this, but yeah, I see what you’re saying. And then who else do we have here? I think that’s kind of my list. Did you have one for Heather? I didn’t have one for Heather. Okay, I had Rooney Mara. Do you like Rooney Mara? I mean, come on. She’s the heiress to the Rooney Fortune. Yeah, the candy bar fortune, all their grandparents own NFL franchises, stealers and the Giants. That’s funny. I know that I was laughing at my terrible joke, but go on. Okay. The last person I had was the Icelandic guy. Oh, here we go. He’s going to be the bad guy from Die Hard, the original movie, the blonde guy. That’s a really rare one, but I like it. He got the ponytail, and obviously he needs to be at the diehard age. But that guy so fucking perfect. I was thinking, like, SNL characters playing European. That’s what I was thinking, like beer Fest when they play like, the German characters. That’s what I’m thinking of for those people, grandpa. Yeah, alright. I think we got a pretty good cast here before we get out of here. Katie not being invited to parties in high school. This was a big problem for me. She’s a woman. She’s in high school. I was in high school. If a girl is going to come to your party, that’s a good thing. It’s as simple as that. You know what I mean? It doesn’t matter who it is. Plus, she has friends. So she’ll bring her friends. She was like, oh, I always had to wait for Miranda to invite me to the parties, or I had to go with Miranda because no one else would invite me. It’s like, no, you’re a group. Everyone is inviting everyone else. Just inviting all the chicks for sure. So maybe they reached out to Miranda, but they were like, hey, you bring in any friends, right? Yeah. Bringing cases in high school. Yeah. Dude, guys want chicks at parties. It doesn’t matter if you have a more social buddy. He’ll invite you to things because they’ll expect that same thing with girls. I do think friends. Yeah. And I think that’s a good point. I think it is kind of fair, I guess, though, to never be the one being called, but to know that you’re invited because they are. But that’s kind of like how I was in high school. My good buddy was just like, a friendlier person. So people call him be like, hey, are you guys coming over and be like, yeah. And they’d be like, all right, cool. I guess it could be how Miranda worded it or just Katie’s interpretation of it. Oh, Miranda was inviting. I wasn’t. It was like, no, they just called Miranda and Miranda’s bipolar, so you don’t know what’s going on through her head. Maybe they called her alterigo. Yeah, she just forgot to say, yeah, I agree. All right. Well, we love our listeners, and we appreciate them reaching out with any sort of questions, comments and concerns. So what have we got this week? You got mail? Yeah. We got Betsy from Texas. Sounds like a real person to me. Betsy. Betsy. Betsy. Betsy from Texas. She wrote in Hi D Man and Keith of the Pod long time listener. First time emailer. This sounds like a good start. You guys sound really attractive. Is what she said. Woah, but I digress. Sorry, I’m taking what’s up with these British fucks wearing PJs to go to bed? Does anyone actually do that? And that’s a great question. Pj sets. I believe Katie or no, maybe Emma was wearing a PJ set. Do you know anyone that does this? Is this a thing? Is that real? I know it’s on TV and movies, but have you ever seen any wear PJ set? Great question, Betsy. Thank you, Betsy. Again, I appreciate listening. I’ll hang up and listen. They did also mention it with Miranda. When Julian was coming into bed. She was like, don’t put your pajamas on like, let’s fuck. Oh, right. Yes. I also found it to be odd, but I do think. I mean, I watched a lot of Disney movies as a kid. And the idea of someone wearing PJs full on pajamas, like pants, long sleeve shirt and nightcap was like a real fucking thing in my mind, and I never understood it. My mom is a huge fan of these. She wears really. To this day. She wears the she doesn’t get up and put them on. No, she’s about to go to sleep and puts them on. Yes. Pajamas, really? Pants and like, a button down shirt. Yeah. And she buys these things for me for Christmas. What a reveal. And I’m like, Mom, I’m personally a boxer sleeper TMI. But that’s how I go. And by boxers, I mean, boxer briefs, of course. Yeah, but I don’t know. Maybe it’s a little bit of my Catholic shame that I don’t like to be penis out all the time, but it’ll be in the nude. It’s boxer in the nude. Yeah. In the nude. That’s the only other option. The point of having covers on your bed is to do the role of whatever this long sleeve. This isn’t turn of the century with oil lamps and no heat. Plus they tug all around you. I do think it is a British thing, though. Okay. I used to be a T shirt sleepwear, and I used to like it a lot. I used to become and then you kind of graduate and you wear it not one time, and you’re like, oh, wow. This is a life change. I feel like if you’ve ever slept without it one time, then you’re like, I’m never going back to a full set of PJs. Also, like, the best part of my day is just fucking taking shit off and getting into bed. Imagine taking shit off and being like, Well, now I got a button on my fucking PJ set. That’s the worst thing ever to play Devil’s advocate here. I think the opposite is true, though, because when I get out of bed in the morning, I’m like, oh, my God, I need to get clothes on because it’s so cold, and then you put cold clothes on and it just gets you so you don’t want to get out of bed. But if you’re wearing, like, a full set of PJs, then you get out of bed and you’re ready to go. You still need to change them. What are you going to wear those? Okay. Work from home. It’s coveted, baby. Yeah. All right. If that’s your answer, the reason is because they’re about to work from home and wear this the rest of the day. All right, fair enough. But we do all own a pair of PJ pants. We just wear them in bed. I wear them sometimes when it’s freezing, but, yeah, I don’t match them with the top. The top is really the weird part. Yeah, that’s really what it is. And they’re always button downs. Yeah, they’re like a button down. I’d wake up. Yeah, you’re hitting rubbing into your stomach or some shit and just like, indenting, oh, my God. That’s horrible. Great question. I didn’t think we’d go this long on it, but it obviously struck a course, but I will be researching if this is a British thing or not. Are you liking this book so far? Yeah, I like it again. I think if it ended right now, then I probably wouldn’t, but I think it’s setting the table. It’s setting you up. It’s giving you a lot to think about, and that enticing me. And I’m not ever at a point where I’m like, this is getting boring. I need to turn this off, even when they’re talking about Rambling stuff and not necessarily to the core of the story. I’m still kind of engaged and being like, how is this going to impact the story later on? I know you had some trepidation as with that, but I think as you get to the ending, if there’s a big full circle reveal, you’ll like it. This is my favorite type of movies, too, like ones that everything builds up to one crescendo. Right. So I like it. So what are your thoughts? Yes. I think that’s very fair. And I think it’s hard to say with a book like this where we’re stopping halfway through, because the whole point is for the last 50 pages to be page Turners like, you can’t stop. You know, it’s kind of like when you read and I had to bring up Harry Potter because I have to every single episode. But it’s like when you read Prisoner of as Caban and the last 50 pages of that book you just could not put down. I don’t care. Whatever I was doing, I’m finishing. You don’t even know you’re reading at that point. You’re literally in the book like you forget your reading word. Exactly. That’s the best feeling in the world. I’m eating easymack. And I’m reading that book non stop, and I’m just immersed in it. Well said. Exactly. So it’s hard with this book, but with that being said, I just think there’s, like, a little too much build up continues to be like, whiny characters about. Yeah. And it’s like I’m 150 pages in a halfway through the book and nothing has changed. So I think we have reached a tipping point here. So I think it’s going to be interesting going forward, and I’m excited to get into it. But I guess the more we’ve talked about this over the last hour has definitely got me excited to finish reading or continuing to read it tonight, but I’m not in love with it. Okay. But at the same time, I don’t have many mysteries to kind of compare it to, which we’ll get into next week. I want to hear about other ones that you like in this route or movies. Whatever. Okay. That was pretty good. Next week, we’re going to be discussing the second half of the book. Until then, please subscribe rate. Review us on itunes and follow along with us on Twitter at Buddy Book Club. That’s about it for me, buddybookclubpodcast at gmail. Com at Buddybook Club on Twitter. Buddy Bookclub Podcast on IG if you have any questions or comments or concerns, thank you. Pj related commentary or other hit us up there until next time. We’ll be heading out and take care. Keep everybody that means love you too. Got him. Got him.