Hawkins’s chilling debut novel is a tour de force of the thriller genre

What she saw from her voyeuristic train window seat could solve the puzzles

THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN Paula Hawkins Loot.co.za (R386) Black Swan

REVIEWER: JULIAN RICHFIELD

MANY by now will have seen the film The Girl on the Train, starring Emily Blunt, based on the book by Paula Hawkins. This reviewer hasn’t, so there will be no comparisons made in this review of the book.

This is Hawkins’s debut novel and it is a tour de force of the thriller genre from a woman who was born in Zimbabwe, lives in London and was a journalist for more than 15 years before turning her hand to fiction.

She has set her story in London and created a really superb main character for it – Rachael is overweight, complex, troubled, unsteady, interesting and likeable.

Rachael catches the same commuter train every morning. The journey is so familiar that she knows its every detail, including its wait at the same signal each time. From her window seat, at this hesitation, she overlooks the back gardens of a row of houses on the street where she used to live. She begins to form a picture the people she now sees living of there, as if she really knows who they are and what they do. One day, she sees something shocking and suddenly her daily commute and everything else changes.

Now she has a chance to become a part of the lives she has only watched from the train.

Rachael’s drinking problem and its effect on her memory make her views of events, well… unreliable.

Is what she thinks she has seen what actually happened, or a product of her frequently non-sober imagination? The lives of Rachael and the two other main women in the story, Megan and Anna, interweave tragically.

Life gets very complicated for Rachel, but as she starts slipping down the slippery slope, she slowly begins to realise that what she saw from her voyeuristic train window seat could solve the puzzles in the observed peoples’ lives.

Hawkins’s creative thinking and careful planning have the story line and its many twists, well-paced and always compelling.

The Girl on the Train is not filled with unnecessary and distracting characters and detail.

None of the characters in it are one-dimensional. The narrative is intelligently conceived and well executed. It’s also pacey and chilling and its twists will keep you guessing all the way. They certainly did me.

Hawkins’s first novel has been published in over 40 languages and has been a global best-seller. Like me, no doubt her many fans will be eagerly biting their nails in anticipation of her next one.

The book is such a great read on its own that I for one feel no compulsion whatsoever to see the film based on it.