The Violet Hour by James Cahill

PRE-ORDER SIGNED COPIES.  Publishes 27th February 2025
 
Set in the art world of the mid-2010s, The Violet Hour draws on Sunset Boulevard to explore queer desire, striving ambition and personal loss, and the eternal question of how to live.

Thomas Haller has achieved the kind of fame that most artists only dream of: shows in London and New York, paintings sold for a fortune. The vision he presents to the world is one of an untouchable genius at the top of his game. It is also a lie. 
 
Who is the real Thomas Haller? His oldest friend and former dealer, Lorna, might once have known - before Thomas traded their early intimacy for international fame. Between his ruthless new dealer and a property mogul obsessed with his work, the appetite for Thomas and his art is all-consuming. 

On the eve of his latest show, the luminaries of the art world gather. But the sudden death of a young man has put everyone on edge, and a chain of events begins that will lead the friends back into the past, to confront who they have become. 

A story of deception, power play and longing, The Violet Hour exposes the unsettling underbelly of the art world, asking: who is granted admission to a world that only seems to glitter and who is left outside, their faces pressed to the glass?
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'I really loved The Violet Hour . . . A highbrow whodunnit, and grippingly so, but it's much more than that, building into a meditation on mortality and the unreliable consolations of art, love and materialism'
PATRICK GALE, author of Mother's Boy
'Beauty, money, power, seduction, betrayal. It's all here'
CHLOË ASHBY, author of Wet Paint
'Pulsing with violence and longing, this is a sumptuous, sinister morality tale'
CLARE POLLARD, author of Delphi
'A hugely enjoyable yarn by an author hitting his literary stride'
SARAH LUCAS