I guess it would be best to explain the world of the Uplift universe before anything else, it's pretty relevant for the story, after all. Before the first contact with the Galactic Civilizations, humanity had begun uplift processes with two species: chimps and dolphins. As luck has it, there was a bigger significance in the uplift of species within the wider galactic hierarchy, as the sentient races were divided into classes depending on if they are a host or a client species. The hosts are the ones who have uplifted someone, the clients being the uplifted.
Now, humanity as a young species, is in an odd place, as, unlike most other species, we don't have a host, or at least not a known host. Humanity seems to be a rare occurrence of either natural evolution or one of the biggest sins around the galaxy, an abandoned uplifted race that has been left to tend itself. If the former, humanity is, despite lower technological prowess, in a higher hierarchical rung than some older races, if the latter, humanity is to be more pitied. Another aspect making humanity brighter is, that we already have two client races of our own, but a problem there is humanity treating them with more reverence than some more "civilized" species.
Humanity is not all fine and dandy though, as we do have our own probation problems. The probationers are people, who have been psychologically deemed too dangerous to go to space. These people are tagged and placed in reservations, thus tied out from the rest of humanity during our glorious ascend towards the stars.
Jacob Dewma, recovering from a previous disaster of Vanilla Space Needle, is working a the Uplift centre with the dolphins when he is contacted by his old friend, an alien of kanten species, Fagin, who urges Jacob to meet with the Sun researches, who have been conducting manned flights to Sun. To everyone's surprise, the Galactic Civilizations included, there seems to be life on the Sun.
This is a huge discovery, as there's no reference towards species able to live on the surfaces of a star anywhere in the Galactic Library, the source of the knowledge for all of the Galaxy. Humanity, a species whose juvenile fantasies of star research were scuffed by the other races, is on the verge of a world-shattering discovery of new knowledge and this they've gained by partly basing their ships on humanity's own tech, which is almost obsolete from the perspective of other older space dwelling species.
The story shifts gears, when a chimpanzee scientist is killed during his solo dive into the Sun. At first, it seems that torus-shaped sun dwellers might have killed the chimp because he was lower in the galactically accepted species hierarchy than humans, but soon it becomes evident, there are other forces at play. Jacob even suspects there might be foul play going on with the sun ghosts or if they are real at all.
Now, without giving too much away, there's a conspiracy at play, but one that only surfaces humanity. And as such, the story is pretty interesting, despite it's not necessarily amazingly written. The themes and ideas of the story are why it works as well as it does, as the characters aren't really that interesting. It's also a snappily written book, that goes onwards like a freight train and it doesn't dilly dally too long on unrelated matters. It offers enough meat for the setting to feel competent, but it also doesn't forget that it's a mystery first and foremost, the backdrop of the Galactic Civilization is just that, a backdrop, that makes the ride more intriguing.
While Sundiver is the first part of the Uplift trilogy, it is a story that stands on its own and can be read as such. Despite the connections to a larger setting, Sundiver is a very self-contained mystery. It mostly just hints at the larger scope, but works on its own so, that you can continue towards the other stories if you so feel like it, not because it's forcing your hand to do so.
Sundiver should be available from various sources, so if you want to buy it, it should be easy enough. I suppose it can be found in libraries as well.
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