The Twilight Hour

by Elizabeth Wilson

“This is an atmospheric book in which foggy, half-ruined London is as much a character as the artists and good-time girls who wander through its pages.”— Time Out Elizabeth Wilson’s elegant noir vividly evokes the fashions and politics of a bohemian community flourishing in postwar London. The Twilight Hour is a riveting thriller with a corkscrew twist. Visiting professor at the London College of Fashion, Elizabeth Wilson is a well-known UK writer on feminism and popular culture.

Genres: Fiction

256 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2006

About the author

Elizabeth Wilson is a pioneer in the development of fashion studies, and has been a university professor, feminist campaigner and activist. Her writing career began in the ‘underground’ magazines of the early 1970s, (Frendz, Red Rag, Spare Rib, Come Together) before she became an academic. She's written for the Guardian and her non-fiction books include Adorned in Dreams (1985, 2003), The Sphinx in the City (1992) (shortlisted for the Manchester Odd Fellows Prize), Bohemians (2000) and Love Game (2014) (long listed for the William Hill sportswriting prize), as well as six crime novels, including War Damage (2009) and The Girl in Berlin (2012) (long listed for the Golden Dagger Award).

There is more than one author with this name in the database. This is the disambiguation profile for authors named Elizabeth Wilson.

Reviews

[Pauline Ross · Rating 4 out of 5]

My book group throws up some interesting reads. This was one that I thought I’d hate, was bored by for several chapters and then gradually got sucked in. The characters and plot left me, if not cold, then certainly lukewarm, but the writing… oh, the writing! The author has an incredible talent, which I can only envy, of finding the perfect word to convey an appearance, a setting, a mood. Everything from faces to furnishings to fur coats is described with a miraculous economy of words that yet places the object in the mind’s eye as fully rounded as if one were seeing it. I loved it.

The plot, not so much. The tale revolves around Dinah, a well-brought-up young lady who’s left her plush home counties home to help out in the war effort, and, not wanting to leave London, has married Alan, who has ambitions to work in the film world. It’s 1947, and Dinah is a fringe member of Alan’s arty crowd, who meet in pubs to plan their glittering futures and drum up support for their plans. It’s all a bit Bohemian as they scrabble by on very little money in the post-war austerity and the worst winter for decades. And then a dubious artist is murdered and one of their crowd is arrested. The rest of the book involves Dinah, Alan and pals trying half-heartedly to clear their friend’s name without stepping on any political or social landmines, given that Colin, the accused, is both a Communist and homosexual. And there’s the age-old conundrum of do we tell the police or not? Which leads to the inevitable difficulties.

Now, this is not uninteresting, but, unlike the average murder mystery, there’s really no way to work out whodunnit ahead of time, so it all came out of the blue rather and was all pretty silly. But then, the murder isn’t really the object of the exercise. It’s more about evoking the atmosphere of post-war London amongst a particular set of people, and this it does brilliantly. But as a murder, it’s a bit of a dud. The blurb describes it as ‘a riveting thriller with a corkscrew twist’. Um, no. Not really.

None of the characters were terribly likable. Dinah was too innocent and naive for words. Alan treated her with patronising disdain much of the time, treating her like a child, but then perhaps that was the prevailing custom of the era. Their friends tended to blur together in my mind. The only one I came close to liking was Stanley, the borderline crook and profiteer, with his dodgy deals and secret meetings. He at least was straightforward, and smart with it. I was half hoping that Dinah would end up divorcing the neglectful Alan and marrying Stanley instead, living in the grand Palladian mansion he’d bought, and being filthy rich and very happy. But sadly it didn’t work out that way.

So far, so ho-hum. But what really saved this book for me is the author’s talent with words. She uses them the way a painter uses a dab of colour here, or a sweep there, economical brush strokes which capture the moment with utter brilliance. Wilson can evoke the frozen streets of London, the leafy Hampshire countryside, a pub, a jazz club, a derelict house, the Brighton seafront with equal facility so that they rise up in full detail in the mind’s eye. She does the same for people, too - a brief description of a facial feature, a hat, a skirt… it’s magical. And her recreation of freezing and shabby rationing-era England, and the bright colours, warmth and sheer life of Spain is glorious. I loved it.

An interesting book, not my usual fare, but then that’s true of all my book group reads. Sometimes I struggle with the choice, but this one, although it was a slow starter, sucked me in and wasn’t at all a penance to read. The plot and characters would be three stars but the writing is definitely five-star-worthy, so I’ll compromise with four.

[Jyv · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sadly, I got bored one and a half chapters in. I just wasn't interested enough to continue.

[Judi K · Rating 2 out of 5]

Found it boring.

[Cynthia Kane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting quick read - read it on a flight from Helsinki to New York. I love these post WWII British novels - crime novels, spy novels, whatever - it was also greta to discover yet another new author I haven't read and will be sure to get more of her works to read.

[Ann Tonks · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this murder mystery set just after WW2 in Britain, the final twist doesn't feel believable and there are so many other elements of the story that could have been developed further. Having said that, I still enjoyed the setting and some of the story telling and characters.