BOOK | FICTION

British author Emma Stonex has written a number of novels under a pseudonym, but The Lamplighters is the first to appear under her real name. Fascinated by the sea and lighthouses — and inspired by the real-life disappearance of three lighthouse keepers in 1900 — Stonex has created a mystery novel about an offshore lighthouse and its three keepers. When a replacement keeper arrives one day in 1972, he finds the door locked from the inside. All three men are missing, later reported dead. “Who took them?” ask the women they left behind. And it’s the women who have the answer. Weaving their confessions together with psychological insight, Stonex creates a watery world of obsession that feels wonderfully, dangerously real. Macmillan Publishers International, €17.60