Emma Stonex's second novel (after The Lamplighters) is a slow-burn psychological revenge thriller that uses multiple timelines, points of view, and geographic locations to create a layered and nuanced portrait of human nature and the need for adequate nurturing.
The Sunshine Man begins in 1989 as Birdie, one of two narrators, learns that Jimmy Maguire, the man who killed her sister, Providence, is being released from prison. Taking the gun she has saved for this occasion, Birdie leaves her family in London and travels to Devon to track down and kill Jimmy. Along the way, Birdie recalls her childhood: abandoned by her mentally unstable mother but raised, along with Providence, by a loving grandmother. Jimmy, the youngest of a troubled, violent family forever on the wrong side of the law, was taken in by Birdie's family and grew close to Providence until a series of disturbing events upended all their lives. The second point of view is Jimmy, whose narrative alternates between flashbacks to his youth, his prison diaries, and the present, when he senses he is being stalked. Stonex skillfully juxtaposes the two points of view to illustrate how differences in perception can have devastating consequences.
Moody, suspenseful, and filled with some surprising twists, The Sunshine Man succeeds as a literary thriller. However, Stonex offers her readers much more with a novel that excavates questions of how people can be shaped by their earliest relationships and how access to basic support systems throughout someone's life can not only alter its trajectory but allow for redemption. --Debra Ginsberg, author and freelance editor