London, 1947: it?s freezing winter in the shabby, bomb-damaged city. Young socialite Dinah Wentworth, a bright, innocent newcomer to the Fitzrovia scene, becomes embroiled in a dark scandal when she discovers the corpse of surrealist artist Titus Mavor. Not wanting to explain her reasons for being at Mavor?s flat that evening, she decides against reporting her grim discovery to the police. But her silence has terrible consequences. Her husband?s friend, Colin Harris, is linked to the crime and arrested on suspicion of murder. Dinah realises someone is trying to frame him and knows she must uncover the real villain before Harris is hanged. Set against the background of the Cold War, post-war shortages, and the struggling British film industry, Elizabeth Wilson?s elegant noir vividly evokes the fashions and politics of a bohemian community flourishing in defiance of austerity. The Twilight Hour is a riveting thriller with a corkscrew twist.
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Review
`fantastically atmospheric... The cinematic quality of the
novel... is its trump card' -- Sunday Express
novel... is its trump card' -- Sunday Express
About the Author
My family was involved in running the British Empire in increasingly lowly postions sliding slowly down the social scale. They felt quite dislocated after WW II and my mother led a very marginal existence. Perhaps because of this she had me educated at St Paul's Girls' School, where I encountered a completely different world of the Jewish and non Jewish intelligentsia, and then at Oxford. Possbily because of the discrepancy between home background and sophisticated educational milieu I was extremely rebellious. I trained as a psychiatric social worker because of an interest in psychoanalysis, but throughout 10 years working in the field I was repelled by its conservative ethos and morality and eventually escaped to a polytechnic. But this time I was involved in Gay Liberation and the Women's Movement, which defined the 1970s for me. In the 1980s I became a lesbian co-parent and later a parent governor at Camden School for Girls. Beginning in the mid-70s I wrote a number of polemical/academic works about women, and then shifted into an interest in fashion and dress (I am currently Visiting Professor at the London College of Fashion, University of the Arts, London). For some years I was a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain, but am now a Green Party member. I am currently working on another novel and also on a book about the necessity of atheism.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
An interesting premise, interesting setting but completely unfulfilled and unexplored. The narrative lacks cohesion and there is a lot of unnecessary padding. The writing is immature at times and the characters wholly unlikeable.
4 of 6 people found the following review helpful
By A. Ross
TOP 500 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback
This third crime novel by feminist fashion expert Wilson is ultimately more interesting for its setting than its plot, which hinges on a pretty lame gimmick. The protagonist is naive twenty-year-old Dinah Wentworth, newly married to her older screenwriter husband and trying to find her own identity amidst the arty Fitzrovia scene of her husband and his friends. These include her husband's old filmmaking pals Hugh (relatively nondescript), Colin (intensely communist), Romanian film director Radu, willowy film star Gwen, property developer and potential film financier Stanley, has-been surrealist painter Titus Mavor, good-time girl Fiona, and assorted other journalists, artists, and gallery owners. Before long, one of the above is dead, and Dinah's deeply involved. In that oldest of plot devices, Dinah comes across the corpse and doesn't report it to the police right away. Anyone who's encountered this before in fiction (and really, who hasn't?) will recognize that her inaction will lead to all kinds of trouble for her as the plot progresses.
Soon, another of the above characters is charged with the murder on the flimsiest of pretexts. Things all get awfully complicated from here, as he has an alibi, but can't use it as it would expose him as a homosexual. Which also ties into dark events that took place during the war. Maybe. Or maybe it ties into some valuable Dali paintings the murder victim had. Or was said to have. Or maybe not. Or maybe the murder related to a love triangle. Or maybe not. It's a very murky plot just barely held together by Dinah and her husband's attempts to exonerate their imprisoned friend, with the help of a Jewish lawyer. Dinah does some haphazard amateur sleuthing, but the story is very herky jerky, and when all is revealed at the end, it's a major disappointment.
Fortunately, the book is greatly redeemed by its evocative portrayal of 1947 London, especially the semi-bohemian demimonde. Britain may have won WWII, but you sure wouldn't know it from this portrait of London (with a minor diversion to Brighton). The wartime unity of the nation is rapidly eroding in the face of an economy in tatters, food rationing, and the uncertain specter of the Cold War. And the bitter Winter isn't helping matters in a city still scarred by widespread bomb damage. Wilson does a nice job of weaving all this content into the story, along with a sense of social change, as Dinah notices a new freedom in fashion, makeup, and social mores. In terms of atmosphere and tone, it shares a great deal with classic noir novels such as Gerald Kersh's "Night and the City", Graham Greene's "Brighton Rock", Arthur La Bern's "It Always Rains on Sunday" (all made into excellent, if somewhat forgotten films) -- which is not to suggest that it's of that rank.
The plotting is a little too haphazard, the characterization a little too uneven, and the ending too gimmicky to make it wholly recommendable, but it's worth checking out by those with an interest immediate postwar London. The author is apparently working on a sequel.
Soon, another of the above characters is charged with the murder on the flimsiest of pretexts. Things all get awfully complicated from here, as he has an alibi, but can't use it as it would expose him as a homosexual. Which also ties into dark events that took place during the war. Maybe. Or maybe it ties into some valuable Dali paintings the murder victim had. Or was said to have. Or maybe not. Or maybe the murder related to a love triangle. Or maybe not. It's a very murky plot just barely held together by Dinah and her husband's attempts to exonerate their imprisoned friend, with the help of a Jewish lawyer. Dinah does some haphazard amateur sleuthing, but the story is very herky jerky, and when all is revealed at the end, it's a major disappointment.
Fortunately, the book is greatly redeemed by its evocative portrayal of 1947 London, especially the semi-bohemian demimonde. Britain may have won WWII, but you sure wouldn't know it from this portrait of London (with a minor diversion to Brighton). The wartime unity of the nation is rapidly eroding in the face of an economy in tatters, food rationing, and the uncertain specter of the Cold War. And the bitter Winter isn't helping matters in a city still scarred by widespread bomb damage. Wilson does a nice job of weaving all this content into the story, along with a sense of social change, as Dinah notices a new freedom in fashion, makeup, and social mores. In terms of atmosphere and tone, it shares a great deal with classic noir novels such as Gerald Kersh's "Night and the City", Graham Greene's "Brighton Rock", Arthur La Bern's "It Always Rains on Sunday" (all made into excellent, if somewhat forgotten films) -- which is not to suggest that it's of that rank.
The plotting is a little too haphazard, the characterization a little too uneven, and the ending too gimmicky to make it wholly recommendable, but it's worth checking out by those with an interest immediate postwar London. The author is apparently working on a sequel.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3.5 out of 5 stars
2 reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
The amateur sleuth tale is well written, but takes a back seat to the period piece
24 Oct 2007
By Harriet Klausner
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
1947, in a freezing still bombed out London, Dinah Wentworth finds the corpse of surrealist painter Titus Mavor. Not wanting to reveal any reasons for being at the Mayor's apartment and heeding advice, she fails to inform the cops.
Not long afterward, the police arrest family friend and film-making business partner Colin Harris, who had a vitriolic public shouting match with the deceased over the immediate future of England. Dinah knows Colin is innocent, a victim of circumstantial evidence compounded by his being a Communist as the Cold War begins to heat up. Over the objection of her husband Alan, who tells her the film partnership was over before Harris' arrest so they owe him nothing; Dinah needs to prove the innocence of Colin as she believes someone is filling in the blanks to finish framing him for the murder.
The amateur sleuth tale is well written, but takes a back seat to the period piece as London, still recovering from the bombings, suffers through a freezing winter as the Cold War begins. Dinah is a fascinating character as she wants the freedom men has, but besides her spouse and the males who dominate the fledgling English film industry keeping her down, her own limitations also holds her back as she accepts as gospel those limitations because she is a female. We've come a long way. Fans of historical tales with a mystery subplot will appreciate THE TWILIGHT HOUR more so than pure whodunit buffs as the incredibly vivid look at the era (readers will shiver with the cold) supersedes the solid investigative subplot.
Harriet Klausner
Not long afterward, the police arrest family friend and film-making business partner Colin Harris, who had a vitriolic public shouting match with the deceased over the immediate future of England. Dinah knows Colin is innocent, a victim of circumstantial evidence compounded by his being a Communist as the Cold War begins to heat up. Over the objection of her husband Alan, who tells her the film partnership was over before Harris' arrest so they owe him nothing; Dinah needs to prove the innocence of Colin as she believes someone is filling in the blanks to finish framing him for the murder.
The amateur sleuth tale is well written, but takes a back seat to the period piece as London, still recovering from the bombings, suffers through a freezing winter as the Cold War begins. Dinah is a fascinating character as she wants the freedom men has, but besides her spouse and the males who dominate the fledgling English film industry keeping her down, her own limitations also holds her back as she accepts as gospel those limitations because she is a female. We've come a long way. Fans of historical tales with a mystery subplot will appreciate THE TWILIGHT HOUR more so than pure whodunit buffs as the incredibly vivid look at the era (readers will shiver with the cold) supersedes the solid investigative subplot.
Harriet Klausner
3.0 out of 5 stars
Strong Atmosphere / Less Strong Plot & Characters
24 April 2007
By A. Ross
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
This third crime novel by feminist fashion expert Wilson is ultimately more interesting for its setting than its plot, which hinges on a pretty lame gimmick. The protagonist is naive twenty-year-old Dinah Wentworth, newly married to her older screenwriter husband and trying to find her own identity amidst the arty Fitzrovia scene of her husband and his friends. These include her husband's old filmmaking pals Hugh (relatively nondescript), Colin (intensely communist), Romanian film director Radu, willowy film star Gwen, property developer and potential film financier Stanley, has-been surrealist painter Titus Mavor, good-time girl Fiona, and assorted other journalists, artists, and gallery owners. Before long, one of the above is dead, and Dinah's deeply involved. In that oldest of plot devices, Dinah comes across the corpse and doesn't report it to the police right away. Anyone who's encountered this before in fiction (and really, who hasn't?) will recognize that her inaction will lead to all kinds of trouble for her as the plot progresses.
Soon, another of the above characters is charged with the murder on the flimsiest of pretexts. Things all get awfully complicated from here, as he has an alibi, but can't use it as it would expose him as a homosexual. Which also ties into dark events that took place during the war. Maybe. Or maybe it ties into some valuable Dali paintings the murder victim had. Or was said to have. Or maybe not. Or maybe the murder related to a love triangle. Or maybe not. It's a very murky plot just barely held together by Dinah and her husband's attempts to exonerate their imprisoned friend, with the help of a Jewish lawyer. Dinah does some haphazard amateur sleuthing, but the story is very herky jerky, and when all is revealed at the end, it's a major disappointment.
Fortunately, the book is greatly redeemed by its evocative portrayal of 1947 London, especially the semi-bohemian demimonde. Britain may have won WWII, but you sure wouldn't know it from this portrait of London (with a minor diversion to Brighton). The wartime unity of the nation is rapidly eroding in the face of an economy in tatters, food rationing, and the uncertain specter of the Cold War. And the bitter Winter isn't helping matters in a city still scarred by widespread bomb damage. Wilson does a nice job of weaving all this content into the story, along with a sense of social change, as Dinah notices a new freedom in fashion, makeup, and social mores. In terms of atmosphere and tone, it shares a great deal with classic noir novels such as Gerald Kersh's "Night and the City", Graham Greene's "Brighton Rock", Arthur La Bern's "It Always Rains on Sunday" (all made into excellent, if somewhat forgotten films) -- which is not to suggest that it's of that rank.
The plotting is a little too haphazard, the characterization a little too uneven, and the ending too gimmicky to make it wholly recommendable, but it's worth checking out by those with an interest immediate postwar London. The author is apparently working on a sequel.
Soon, another of the above characters is charged with the murder on the flimsiest of pretexts. Things all get awfully complicated from here, as he has an alibi, but can't use it as it would expose him as a homosexual. Which also ties into dark events that took place during the war. Maybe. Or maybe it ties into some valuable Dali paintings the murder victim had. Or was said to have. Or maybe not. Or maybe the murder related to a love triangle. Or maybe not. It's a very murky plot just barely held together by Dinah and her husband's attempts to exonerate their imprisoned friend, with the help of a Jewish lawyer. Dinah does some haphazard amateur sleuthing, but the story is very herky jerky, and when all is revealed at the end, it's a major disappointment.
Fortunately, the book is greatly redeemed by its evocative portrayal of 1947 London, especially the semi-bohemian demimonde. Britain may have won WWII, but you sure wouldn't know it from this portrait of London (with a minor diversion to Brighton). The wartime unity of the nation is rapidly eroding in the face of an economy in tatters, food rationing, and the uncertain specter of the Cold War. And the bitter Winter isn't helping matters in a city still scarred by widespread bomb damage. Wilson does a nice job of weaving all this content into the story, along with a sense of social change, as Dinah notices a new freedom in fashion, makeup, and social mores. In terms of atmosphere and tone, it shares a great deal with classic noir novels such as Gerald Kersh's "Night and the City", Graham Greene's "Brighton Rock", Arthur La Bern's "It Always Rains on Sunday" (all made into excellent, if somewhat forgotten films) -- which is not to suggest that it's of that rank.
The plotting is a little too haphazard, the characterization a little too uneven, and the ending too gimmicky to make it wholly recommendable, but it's worth checking out by those with an interest immediate postwar London. The author is apparently working on a sequel.
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3.5 out of 5 stars
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