I’m sure this will be a major read for many in 2025, coming from the author of The Girl on the Train, adapted as a movie with Emily Blunt. Psychological thriller seems to be Hawkins stock in trade, and The Blue Hour falls into that genre. Vanessa Chapman, beautiful, independent, volatile visual artist specializing in painting, sculpture, and assemblage multimedia works, has been dead for a year now. Her friend and carer Grace is dealing with her own grief while trying to assemble Vanessa’s remaining works, letters, and journals for the Fairburn Foundation, the estate to which Vanessa bequeathed her work. Grace was informally left Vanessa’s beloved island and home, Eris, an island joined to the mainland by a causeway that is impassible for half of each day at high tide.

While to the manor born, Vanessa leaves most of that behind, driven by the need for freedom to create her art. She achieved some degree of success when alive, and stands to hit higher heights, and possibly scandal, after her death. When the piece Division II, on display at the Tate Museum, is suspected to contain a human rib bone, curator James Becker is dispatched by his boss and oldest friend Sebastian Lennox, heir of the Fairburn Foundation, to Eris and Grace, to obtain all remaining works and writings of Chapmen forthwith. As the investigation of the bone in Division II proceeds, Becker’s attempts to take away Chapman’s materials is thwarted and delayed by Grace. We learn more about each person’s relationships, as most are not what they appear to be.

James and his wife Helena are in the last months of her pregnancy, living in a lodge on Fairburn’s grounds, a complication given that Helena was engaged to Sebastian prior to meeting James. James is in a perpetual state of anxiety over his wife’s fidelity and health, questioning Sebastian’s motives at every turn. James’ personal obsession with Vanessa Chapman’s art dates back to his childhood, so the chance to be the primary curator for her works is irresistible. Vanessa is revealed to be a complex person, driven in equal measure by her drives to create art and have sex. She impulsively married Julian Chapman, a high born ne’er-do-well who chases women and adventures. Vanessa knows he is no good for her, but cannot bring herself to divorce him. Finally, we learn about Grace, physician for the village, with an ignominious past of her own, a twisted personality disordered woman who believes she finds purpose as Vanessa’s protector and carer.

All action on Eris is bound by the strictures of nature: the tides that make the causeway impassible and beaches risky, the winds and weather that make the most scenic parts of the island the most treacherous. Beauty and risk, always side by side. Hawkins slips into cliché a bit, by depicting high born characters of low virtue, such as laziness, recklessness, and rashness; while low born characters possess high virtue, such as dependability, work ethic, and kindness. Hawkins does a fine job of slowly unveiling Grace’s treachery and violence, which she has managed to hide from herself and others for so long.

This was a real page turner, set in a wildly beautiful area in Hawkins’ imagination. A quick, twisty, absorbing read.