The Sunshine Man
01 May 2025Synopsis
‘The week I shot a man clean through the head began like any other . . .’
From Emma Stonex, the bestselling author of The Lamplighters, comes The Sunshine Man, a tangled mystery about a terrible crime and a revenge plotted over decades.
'A deeply thrilling and emotionally rich page-turner. One of my books of the year' - Lucy Clarke
'Fiendishly gripping' - Rosie Walsh
In January 1989, Birdie wakes to the news she’s been waiting eighteen years to hear. Jimmy Maguire, the man who killed her sister, has been freed from jail. Birdie leaves for London with a gun and a plan: to find him and make him pay. But there’s another side to the story, and she’s about to enter a world of family lies, worn-out loyalties and long-buried betrayals.
Did Jimmy kill Birdie’s sister, or is he the only one she can really trust? And when the truth is finally revealed, will she choose forgiveness – or retribution?
A heart-stopping new novel of murky shared pasts and a fury-fueled present, The Sunshine Man is a thrilling cat and mouse chase set against the salt-drenched backdrop of England’s south coast, from bestselling author Emma Stonex.
Details
01 May 2025
9781529047387Reviews
A remarkable novel - heart-wrenching, unflinching and deeply compassionate. The prose is luminous - always vibrant and original, often very beautiful - as the story delves deep into the respective pasts of the two very different protagonists, before building to a thrilling, and incredibly moving, climax. If you loved The Lamplighters, I guarantee you’ll love The Sunshine Man too. Me? I adored it.Emylia Hall, author of The Shell House Detectives
Masterful. Not only suspenseful and exquisitely tense but a nuanced, humanely observed portrait of grief and trauma. The setting and haunting atmosphere are beautifully evoked with subtle, real-feeling period detail. A personal, granular exploration of big questions - crime and justice, grace and revenge - that will stay with you long after the story has reached its unexpected conclusion. A triumph.Jo Harkin, author of The Pretender
The Sunshine Man is a masterful literary thriller. Stonex's exquisite line by line writing lifts this dark tale into the light, and provokes nuanced thinking about revenge and redemption. A deeply thrilling and emotionally rich page-turner. One of my books of the year.Lucy Clarke, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Castaways and One of the Girls
A brilliantly accomplished story of fractured lives and the long-term reverberations of violent crime, The Sunshine Man is both quietly poetic and fiendishly gripping. Stonex's prose is bruising and beautiful and her complex cast of characters asks confronting and important questions from the first page to the dramatic finale. I will be thinking about this nuanced and compelling novel for a very long time.Rosie Walsh, author of The Man Who Didn't Call
