With The Blue Hour, Paula Hawkins firmly stakes a formidable claim as a force to be reckoned with in the thriller genre. A tight plot, a gripping narrative and a gob smacking climax all contrive to make the author’s new book an ‘unputdownable’ read. This is Ms. Hawkin’s best work to date, notwithstanding the spectacular success of her 2015 blockbuster, The Girl On a Train. Bleak, unpredictable and dark, The Blue Hour remains in the mind of the reader long after the covers have been closed.

Vanessa Chapman, an eccentric but brilliant painter and ceramic artist, makes the windswept and isolated Scottish Island of Eris her home and engages in inspiring artwork before untimely succumbing to the pernicious hands of cancer. Just before her death, Chapman bequeaths her works of art to the Fairburn Estate, a foundation owned by Douglas Lennox, a philanthropist and art dealer. What makes Chapman’s decision to bequeath her remaining works to Lennox flabbergasting is a public fall out which the two had many years ago leading to nasty law suits and a final out of court settlement.

When a bone in one of Chapman’s sculptures, on display at the Tate Gallery is suspected of being human, James Becker, a Chapman scholar, working at the Fairburn Estate knows he has his hands full. Added to the fact that Julian, Chapman’s husband disappeared in a shroud of mystery with all efforts to trace him leading to a dead end for over two decades, the Foundation is in danger of attracting more than just negative publicity.

Becker makes his way to Eris Island to meet septuagenarian Grace, Vanessa Chapman’s long time companion and the executor of her estate to try and find answers to the mysterious sculpture with a potential human bone. Alternating between flashbacks, excerpts from Vanessa Chapman’s diaries and Becker’s, Hawkins weaves an intricate tapestry with every warp and weft leading to unchartered territories and unexplored paths.

Eris Islands holds within its cold bosom sleeping dogs that are best left undisturbed. The more Becker tries to unravel the shadowy past of Vanessa Chapman’s feisty life, the more complicated the picture becomes for the Chapman expert.  An island that is accessible from the mainland only when the tide is out, a phenomenon that occurs in two six hour portions each day, is a naturally conducive way to create and hide secrets.

The Blue Hour – an author at the peak of her prowess.