If you enjoy a good mystery, that is inspired by a historic event, and have a passion for prose written in a wonderfully descriptive, metaphorical style, then this is a book for you.

The narrative is based on the disappearance of three keepers who vanished from their lighthouse off the coast of Scotland in 1900. Three disturbing facts add to the miasma of mystery that enshrouds the lighthouse they call ‘The Maiden’.

Firstly, the door was locked from the inside. Secondly, two meals were prepared ready to be eaten. And thirdly, perhaps most bizarre of all, the clocks had stopped at the same time.

The mystery is maintained by means of a non-linear narrative that takes many forms. Chapters that jump back in time, chapters in epistolary form, interviews with the wives of the keepers. Interviews from the past and, when a famous author wants to write a story on the disappearances, interviews in the present.

The chapters in the past are used to provide the reader with information about the relationship between the keepers and their hermitical life on the tower.

In the present, 20 years later, the chapters are written from the wives’ perspective and, as light is slowly shone on the mystery, new mysteries unfold. Why, when you would think such a tragedy would bring the wives together, has a bitter acrimony, bordering on hatred, been forged between two of the women? And are the rumours of a stranger on the tower true?

Stonex’s prose has a flowing allegorical style and she impresses with how she writes the author’s interviews. The reader, never hearing the author’s voice, is left to decipher his questions from the answers the wives give. Much like a one-sided phone conversation. A simple touch that works tremendously.

A stellar debut (under her own name), which leaves you guessing until the end.

Reviewed by Neale Lucas