The Sunshine Man

A Novel

By: Emma Stonex

Narrated by: Edward Rowe, Meg Salter

“The week I shot a man clean through the head began like any other . . .”

A taut, electrifying thriller about a woman determined to avenge her sister’s murder—and the killer who must confront his own ghosts

Birdie Keller wakes one freezing January morning to the news she’s been waiting eighteen years to hear. Jimmy Maguire, the man who killed her sister, has been freed from jail. She leaves for London with a pistol and a plan: to find this man and make him pay.

But every story has two sides. Jimmy can sense he’s being hunted. He knew Birdie a long time ago, in a life she’d sooner forget, and he isn’t the only one with something to hide. As the two circle each other in a heart-stopping game of cat and mouse, they plunge into a murky world of family secrets, betrayals, and unsolved mysteries.

A tense, spellbinding page-turner, The Sunshine Man twists its way through the web of lives left shattered after a terrible crime and crafts an unforgettable tale of loss and revenge.

Critic reviews

“An ambitious revenge thriller . . . What makes this thought-provoking book well worth the read is the delicate and perceptive chronicling of how good intentions, childhood misunderstandings, throwaway comments and split-second decisions can pave the way for disaster.” —The Guardian

“A brilliantly accomplished story of fractured lives and the long-term reverberations of violent crime, The Sunshine Man is both poetic and fiendishly gripping. Stonex’s prose is bruising and beautiful.” —Rosie Walsh, New York Times bestselling author of The Love of My Life

“The Sunshine Man is a masterful literary thriller . . . One of my books of the year.” —Lucy Clarke, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Castaways and One of the Girls

“Masterful. Not only suspenseful and exquisitely tense but a nuanced, humanely observed portrait of grief and trauma. A triumph.” —Jo Harkin, author of The Pretender

“A remarkable novel—heart-wrenching, unflinching, and deeply compassionate . . . thrilling and incredibly moving. If you loved The Lamplighters, I guarantee you’ll love The Sunshine Man too.” —Emylia Hall, author of The Shell House Detectives

“[Has] the best opening line of a novel this year . . . Stonex’s parallel narratives make it a suspenseful read, with two main characters who are compellingly flawed.” —The Minnesota Star Tribune

“A raw, gritty psychological thriller that will leave readers breathless.” —Booklist (starred review)

“Compelling . . . this chiller demonstrates on nearly every page the power of the written word.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)