“The Blue Hour” by Paula Hawkins, behind closed doors on a hostile island – Libération

The British novelist, to whom we owe “The Girl on the Train”, delivers with her latest novel a psychological thriller which is reminiscent of “Rebecca” by Daphné du Maurier

Find on this page all the latest crime fiction news and the Books that caught Libé's eye. And subscribe to the Libé Polar newsletter by clicking here.

Difficult to find greater happiness than that of starting a new novel by Paula Hawkins when the sky is white outside, our neurons are screaming for mercy and we are looking for every possible reason to cut ourselves off from the raging world and stay locked in the hot. The Blue Hour is an excellent one, it won't give you a headache, it will give you just the right amount of anxiety and will make you have a great time turning the pages without thinking to see if the sky has changed color in the interval. There is something soothing and addictive in the writing of the British novelist that is difficult to explain but whose immutability is reassuring. Of course, the girl on the train (Sonatine, 2015) his bestseller, devoured by more than 22 million readers, remains unbeatable but Hawkins has achieved the feat of overcoming this success and continuing to write extremely well-constructed and held novels from start to finish.