‘Girl’ thrillers have been eclipsed by the antiheroines of sad-girl lit. But character-driven, nail-biting crime is here to stay

Girl on the Train, which became a film, was Paula Hawkins’ debut novel. Dreamworks Pictures/AAP

In recent years, the self-sabotaging anti-heroine of the “Girl” novels has been co-opted by authors writing about disaffected youngish women caught between the search for a meaningful life and the celebration of irreverence.

But psychological thrillers have continued to be hugely popular – and Hawkins’ fourth novel, The Blue Hour, is a masterclass in the genre.

Review: Blue Hour – Paula Hawkins (Penguin), Leave the Girls Behind – Jacqueline Bublitz (Allen & Unwin), The Thinning – Inga Simpson (Hachette)

Obsession, wealth and privilege

An atmospheric page-turner about creative compulsion, obsession, wealth and privilege, The Blue Hour studies the uneasy relationship between artistic practice and the high-class world of art dealers. Following the discovery of a human bone in a prized sculpture by the late, renowned artist Vanessa Chapman, art historian James Becker sets off to Vanessa’s former home on a remote, tidal island in Scotland, in search of answers.

At the house, Becker is met by Grace Haswell, an unmarried GP who was Vanessa’s devoted companion and carer during the final stages of her life. Lonely, a little odd, but mostly unremarkable, Grace guards Vanessa’s memory and studio with jealous devotion. Suspicious of the art world, she insists the bone came from a deer. But she agrees to let Becker look at Vanessa’s sketches and notebooks as part of his investigation. As the story unfolds, the mysteries thicken. Questions arise about missing artworks and Vanessa’s notoriously unfaithful husband, Julian, who disappeared 20 years ago. The plot is full of unsettling surprises, but Hawkins roots every twist and turn firmly in the psychology of her characters. Even when criminal behaviour becomes apparent, her focus is on the flawed motivation behind any wrongdoing over the unlawful acts themselves. This is central to her mastery of psychological suspense. Essentially, Hawkins understands that effective psychological thrillers foreground their characters’ interior perspectives and mental states. She knows that plot is derived from the uncertainty of these subjective experiences. She has an innate grasp of the relationship between human frailty and malice, and the ways in which social and cultural forces create damaged and subsequently harmful individuals. And she uses these insights to build well-crafted, close third-person perspectives, showing how wrong-footed thoughts and festering emotions construct the cracked filters of her complex protagonists. Paula Hawkins’ fourth novel provides a ‘masterclass’ in the psychological thriller. Alisa Connan/PRH Red herrings, reveals and ‘killer twists’ According to the professional writing school, Curtis Brown Creative, classic thriller narrative devices include “foreshadowing, withholding, misdirection, red herrings, reveals, and the killer twist”. Characters should be “vivid with rich inner lives and complex motivations”. But while plenty of thrillers embrace the former, too many skimp on the psychological intricacy of the latter. They prioritise the circumstances that push and pull their characters around, instead of developing the psychological experience of these situations. The stories might be thrilling, but without a premise of strong and convincing psychology, they often morph into crime fiction. Interestingly, the term “psychological” is often attached to novels about female protagonists in domestic settings, regardless of the narrative point of view. Typically, these so-called psychological thrillers involve professional, often married heterosexual women thrown into emotional and domestic peril by an inciting tragedy or drama that upends their comfortable, white, middle-class existence. Memory loss, unfaithful husbands, dangerous intimate relationships, digital theft, jealous co-workers and toxic girlfriends all offer fabulous scope for juicy thriller plots. Many of these stories follow the classic whodunnit arc of crime. But the truly psychological ones involve a consciously crafted psychological perspective that expresses the interiority of the character. Challenging the ‘dead girl trope’ With her 2022 debut thriller, Before You Knew My Name, New Zealand author Jacqueline Bublitz managed to infuse crime writing with incisive psychology to incredible effect. Subverting the genre’s traditional themes through a feminist lens, in similar fashion to Emily Maguire’s An Isolated Incident, Bublitz’s award-winning novel interwove the heartrending, posthumous perspective of a girl who has been brutally murdered with that of the woman who finds her. Jacqueline Bublitz infused crime writing with incisive psychology to incredible effect in her debut novel. Bublitz’s second novel, Leave the Girls Behind, continues to challenge the dead girl trope, this time addressing the tragedy of missing and murdered children. Again, she peels back the popular crime narrative by rehumanising the female victims of male violence and repositioning them at the heart of the story, instead of glamourising the killer. And once more, she crafts a highly original, deeply psychological perspective with a very clever twist. Nineteen years ago, Ruth-Anne Baker’s childhood friend, Beth, was abducted and killed. The perpetrator, school teacher Ethan Oswald, was convicted and has since died. But Ruth is convinced he was responsible for other murders, and believes he had an accomplice who is still alive. Now living in New York City, where she is quite literally haunted by Beth, Ruth is triggered by news of another missing girl from her hometown in Connecticut. She becomes newly obsessed with her theories concerning Oswald. The network of Oswald’s former school students includes partners, children, even landlords and extends around the globe. But Ruth is unstoppable. After tracking down a possible connection near Auckland, she sets off to New Zealand. There, she picks up another trail in Oslo that persuades her to reroute her homeward flight via Norway. But as she uncovers more and more details, Ruth’s preoccupation with the murderer makes her increasingly agitated –  and she starts to question herself and her relationship with reality. Gripping and moving, the novel is undeniably busy, but this seems to be a purposeful means of reflecting Ruth’s congested state of mind. By exploiting the notion of the twisty thriller and creating a deliberately crowded story, Bublitz invites the reader to ask, along with Ruth: what happens when there are too many twists? The more Ruth immerses herself within the endless maze of her own projections, suspicions and fears, the more disoriented she becomes. The reader, caught within the intricate convolutions of the plot, shares the experience. The sense of being lost and bewildered is visceral because the reader is confounded along with Ruth, as well as confused by the story. Using the narrative form to convey the protagonist’s inner world in this way is a smart move. It brings a whole new layer to the psychological element of the thriller. Ruth’s traumatised psyche informs not just the content, but also the structure of the novel. And Bublitz’s alignment of the supernatural with the psychological is positively Freudian. Setting is crucial to a good psychological thriller, but as with other aspects of the narrative, the mental and emotional impact of place needs to be clearly and consciously written. In Leave the Girls Behind, Ruth’s uncontainable perspective is intrinsically linked to the international scale of her investigation. And in The Blue Hour, both artist Vanessa and her devoted friend, Grace, are shaped by their solitary lives on the largely inaccessible island of Eris. There, as Hawkins says, “acts of devotion seem suffocating” and “aggression is rendered innocuous”. A near-future dystopia Inga Simpson’s sixth novel (and eighth book), The Thinning, derives its tension and suspense primarily from place and environment. Her dystopian story is situated in the near future. Climate change has devastated the Australian landscape, female fertility is at risk and a new political regime is in charge, relying on satellites to control the masses. Excessive use of screen time has resulted in the evolution of a new, poor-sighted type of human, referred to as the Incompletes. These beings have an intolerance for the outdoors, cannot reproduce with other Incompletes and are widely distrusted by society. Despite social oppression, small communities of resistance persist, living off-grid and doing their best to avoid surveillance. Among them are Fin and her mother Dianella, who used to be an astrophotographer before satellites blocked out the stars. The pair are still grieving the death of Fin’s father, a leading astronomer. They are living in the Warrumbungle Range, New South Wales, when Fin, disregarding the rules of life in hiding, is spotted bathing in the bush by Terry, a teenage Incomplete whose parents have been detained. As a result, the band of outliers are forced to flee, taking Terry with them –  much to Fin’s annoyance. An imminent solar eclipse brings a further challenge when Fin is tasked with a related mission by her mother. Without knowing what Dianella is planning, Fin races against time to her assigned destination, trying to avoid the authorities as well as the crowds who have come to watch the eclipse. Her patience stretched by Terry, Fin relies on her faith in her mother –  and their shared love of the universe – to see her through. Inga Simpson’s novel is fast-paced and brimming with tension. Simpson’s novel is taut, fast-paced and brimming with tension. Expertly structured, it weaves past and present together in a seamless, moving story that shows the direct impact of the political on the personal. Chilling and topical, this is a thriller about crimes against nature and personal freedoms. It integrates themes of reproductive rights, political authoritarianism, technological dominion, global warming and the extinction crisis. The story is also a stark reminder of the precious and interdependent connections between human and other-than-human life, imparting an uplifting eco-psychological perspective, along with a darker, more thrilling agenda. With just over two hours to reach their final destination, Fin and Terry are deep in the sub-alpine terrain of Mount Kaputar when they encounter pink slugs, a species believed to have died out. The hope and wonder the slugs inspire in them alleviates the tension momentarily. It encourages a reflective pause from Fin. “What if the thresholds I long to cross are not portals to another dimension, but the capacity to fully inhabit our own?” she asks herself. “What if we could see a way to make a new world, where all beings, no matter how fragile, could thrive?” True twists lie deep in the psyche Whether rooted in crime or cli-fi, domestic noir or courtroom drama (and whether marketed as literary or commercial), the effective psychological thriller ultimately depends on a psychologically astute narrative perspective. Complex plots and unpredictable storylines are all very well, but the truest twists lie deep within the psyche of a believable protagonist. Hawkins understands this beautifully. Before starting work on The Blue Hour, she knew she wanted to write about an artist. When she spotted a lone cottage on a tiny island off the coast of Brittany, France, she understood that landscape would play a vital role in the life of this character, but her starting point was the human mind. “What interested me was the sort of person who might choose to live there, at the mercy of the weather and the tide,” she writes, describing the imaginative and creative process of developing her protagonist. She knew the romantic allure of solitude would be one thing, but that permanent social withdrawal would be quite another. In other words, a well-rendered psychological thriller begins with questions about the character, and the kind of person they are – not about what happens to them. The important thing is: who are they? Where have they come from? Who might they become? And, in turn, what might they do? Authors: Liz Evans, Adjunct Researcher, English and Writing, University of Tasmania

Read more https://theconversation.com/girl-thrillers-have-been-eclipsed-by-the-antiheroines-of-sad-girl-lit-but-character-driven-nail-biting-crime-is-here-to-stay-242767