A lighthouse emerging from a rock in the sea. A door locked from the inside. And Three men supposedly on duty, missing We review The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex.
Lamplighters – the blurb
Cornwall, 1972. Three keepers vanish from a remote lighthouse, miles from the shore. The entrance door is locked from the inside. The clocks have stopped. The Principal Keeper’s weather log describes a mighty storm, but the skies have been clear all week.
What happened to those three men, out on the tower? The heavy sea whispers their names. The tide shifts beneath the swell, drowning ghosts. Can their secrets ever be recovered from the waves?
Twenty years later, the women they left behind are still struggling to move on. Helen, Jenny and Michelle should have been united by the tragedy, but instead it drove them apart. And then a writer approaches them. He wants to give them a chance to tell their side of the story. But only in confronting their darkest fears can the truth begin to surface . . .
Inspired by real events, The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex is an intoxicating and suspenseful mystery, an unforgettable story of love and grief that explores the way our fears blur the line between the real and the imagined.
It really happened
The book is inspired by real events that took place in the Outer Hebrides in 1900. Stonex points out that although inspired by, the book is a work of fiction. For a start it is based in 1972, a time when lighthouses were beginning to become mechanised and the tradition of Lamplighters was slowly dying out. The book then flicks to 1992 and to the lives of those left behind by their mysterious disappearance. Just what happened to the three men? And how do you deal with not knowing?
The book got off to a cracking start with all the hallmarks of a good Sherlock mystery – locked door, stopped clocks, table set for tea. Yet don’t be fooled, this is not a good old fashioned crime novel. It is intriguing certainly but Stonex veers away into literary fiction pretty early on. There were lovely little snip bits about the life of a lighthouse keeper – did you know they had to learn to bake bread? There is grief, loneliness and hidden pasts aplenty. The book unfurls revealing secret after secret as the day of the men’s disappearance draws ever near.
This is how it ends
It’s a difficult decision – to step forward and say ‘this is how it happened’. There were so many ways Stonex could have gone. I for one am not sure which way I would have chosen, to leave it unexplained? to tie it in a neat bow this way? Or to hint a little another way? I’m still undecided at the ending but I won’t say anymore as I don’t want to give anything away.
It’s definitely a read that captures the attention with a wisp of a true story and an impossible crime, holds it with fascinating tales of men alone for days on end and then spits you out like the sea leaving residual sand beneath your toes. Salty, ghostly, intriguing.
