Unlikely Detectives : Investigation as a healing journey in The girl on the train

This paper sets Paula Hawkins' best-selling novel The Girl on the Train within the framework of Domestic noir to foreground the ways in which a vulnerable, disparaged female subject undertakes a "healing journey", i.e., manages to recover from a situation of pain, sorrow, and distress and to find a new source of power and agency through investigation and by accounting for her own experience with her own voice. The narrative complexity of the novel, which is characterised by multiple non-omniscient (and often unreliable/fallible narrative voices) reveals a new, atypical kind of detection in contemporary crime writing. For the unlikely detective profile thus fashioned, solving the crime goes hand in hand with getting hold of her identity, owning her past choices and mistakes and taking action to build her future anew.