“The Blue Hour” by Paula Hawkins (Mariner)
Since bursting on the scene in 2015 with “The Girl on a Train,” Paula Hawkins has established herself as a reliable writer of psychological thrillers set in the U.K. “The Blue Hour” doesn’t plow any new ground on that front, but it’s a tight story with interesting characters that keeps you engaged until the end.
Set mostly on an isolated Scottish island named Eris, where a famous painter and ceramicist named Vanessa Chapman once lived and worked, the story begins with a discovery. A bone in one of Chapman’s sculptures, now owned by an estate, may be human. That revelation links together the three main characters — Chapman’s longtime companion Grace Winters, a Chapman scholar who works for Fairburn Estate named James Becker, and Julian, Chapman’s ex-husband who went missing 20 years ago.
Told in the present, in flashbacks from two decades ago, and via excerpts from Chapman’s diary, the plot moves along steadily. It’s not really a keep-the-reader-guessing type of thriller, but more of a slow build that culminates in a shocking ending.
Hawkins weaves artistic themes and the creative process through the novel. Chapman’s diary entries are filled with references to the landscape that inspires her — the “terrible chaos” of waves, the sky “miraculous azure or threatening gunmetal.” The title refers to a time at dusk before the stars come out when the color leaches from the day but it’s not yet full dark. Hawkins’ prose often mirrors Chapman’s artistic eye. Here’s Becker’s first glimpse of Grace: “Her face is soft, cheeks relaxing gently into jowls, and her colors are muddied: from her bowl of hair to her slightly protuberant eyes… she is painted in varying shades of brown.”
The novel’s setting is a character unto itself. Eris is reachable from the mainland only when the tide is out, in two six-hour chunks each day, and so it’s a fine place to bury secrets — physical and psychological. Learning those secrets is the fun of the novel, and there are few authors writing today who drip them out, page by excruciating page, like Hawkins. ROB MERRILL, MDT/AP
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