Tue 29 Aug 2023
A PI Mystery Review by Tony Baer: LAURA LIPPMAN – Sunburn.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[5] Comments
LAURA LIPPMAN – Sunburn. William Morrow, hardcover, February 2018; trade paperback, July 2018; mass market paperback, June 2019.
Adam Bosk, a Baltimore PI, has been hired to track down Polly Costello. She’s a pretty redhead, mid-30’s.
He finds her in the High Ho Tavern in Belleville, Delaware. He sits at the bar and tries to connect. She’s got a sunburn.
Polly’s first husband, Ditmars, was a wife-beating arson detective. Ditmars made an unholy alliance with an insurance broker to underwrite a bunch of insurance policies and burn stuff down, splitting the proceeds.
Polly wasn’t given much of an allowance from Ditmars, so she entertained herself going to the library film series. One day, the library put on a James M. Cain series, showing Mildred Pierce, Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice. But it was Double Indemnity that got her attention. She loved it. And read the book, becoming a Cain acolyte.
Polly then took out a big policy on her husband, made their daughter the beneficiary, and made her husband a big turkey dinner, stuffing and mashed potatoes filled with crushed up sleeping pills, and homemade apple pie with whipped cream whipped by hand.
That night the same hand that did the whipping grabbed a huge kitchen knife and plunged it deep into her husband’s heart.
She was later pardoned by the governor among a slew of other murderers suffering from battered woman’s syndrome. The governor’s office did a crappy job of vetting her case (the premeditation, the insurance), and later regretted her pardon — but too late. She was free.
The insurance broker never got his kickback. And hired PI Adam Bosk to spy on her and find out where she was keeping the money.
But Bosk ends up falling for Polly, just like every other man she’s ever wanted, or needed, or used. And Bosk throws in with Polly, casting both his client and his caution to the wind.
Polly is even more complicated than she appears to be. And darkness descends. Enveloping Adam Bosk and all else in Polly’s orbit.
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It’s a very well-done modern take on the classic noir tale. If anyone is wondering if noir is still a viable thing, check it out. It’s also interesting to see the femme fatale from a modern female writer’s perspective. She’s ambiguous, lusty and sexy as hell. But she’s also three dimensional and at the end of the day, you can empathize with her in a way that James M. Cain and many of the old timey noir practitioners were incapable.
It’s a legit noir. And it’s from 2018. So there. It can still be done. And with a fresh take, too. Thanks to Juri Nummelin for the recommendation: https://pulpetti.blogspot.com/2018/07/laura-lippman-sunburn.html
August 29th, 2023 at 6:40 pm
Although Laura Lippman has written 12 books about another Baltimore-based PI named Tess Monaghan, it looks like Adam Bosk is fully eligible for entry in our recent discussion of one-and-done PIs:
https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=85000
August 30th, 2023 at 12:28 am
Nothing at all to do with the Farrah Fawcett-Majors + Charles Grodin romantic mystery movie.
August 30th, 2023 at 6:01 pm
It was a PI mystery, one that I’ve never seen, but as far as I know, there’s no other connection. I remember it as being highly hyped as FFM’s first movie, for what that’s worth.
If anyone would like to watch it, here it is. (And I may just do that myself.)
August 31st, 2023 at 1:32 am
Haha. Nice pickup.
Charles Grodin is an interesting actor. Not sure if he is still with us. It’s easy to underrate him but he was intelligent, and had range when called for. Similar to Richard Benjamin, another actor everyone loves to shellac.
Grodin –apparently –somewhat of a finicky, fussy, “Tony Randall” type in real life –but what the heck, Tony Randall had a great career.
As for poor Farrah Fawcett –a darn shame. Sad end.
August 31st, 2023 at 9:32 pm
There have been several notable attempts to write modern femme fatale’s from the female point of view and several successful attempts. It’s an interesting idea to give an archetype a three-dimensional character.