Number 3- The Blue Hour- Paula Hawkins

 

My first full length novel of the year. I finished it last week, hopefully I will be more prompt for the rest of the year. I'd love to say it's an early contender for book of the year but it isn't. 

It's a solid little thriller with not really that much thrilling.

Grace is the ex-best friend of Vanessa, a successful artist, and executor of her will. She lives in Vanessa's old house on an island just off the coast, accessible only by a causeway which is covered by the tide for 12 hours a day.

She's locked in a protracted legal argument with the family who inherited all of Vanessa's art. They believe she still has works on the island that should have been handed over.

When someone notices that one of the found item sculptures that has been handed over contains a human rib, Grace's solitude on the island is about to be disturbed.

The secrets of the island are drip-fed through the narrative, along with some (quite a lot of) unrelated bits of drama with the family who own the artworks in question.

It's impossible to say what my biggest complaint about this book is without giving a huge spoiler, so apologies in advance. I will leave that to the very end. 

The story takes a long while to get going.  I can't say I was ever bored reading it, but I was never particularly enthralled either.  Becker and Grace are a good pair of central characters. Hawkins' prose is nothing if not fluid and easily readable.  The side plots with the Lennox family never really seem to add up to much and could be entirely excised from the narrative.

There was one of the plot twists that did take me completely by surprise, although, in retrospect all the clues were there, so kudos to Hawkins for that.

It was a solid no nonsense read. I probably will read another of her books, and hope that the story is a bit more engrossing.

Spoiler

Yet another example of the "she's fat and ugly, therefore she's the killer" trope.