SUNBURN

'Thrilling . . . I read this book at a furious pace and never forgot about it all year.' Roxane Gay, 'My Favourite Book of 2018'

“a masterful mix from a total pro”

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"A redheaded waitress, a good-looking private eye, insurance fraud, arson, rough sex, and a long hot summer: some like it noir.With her 23rd novel, Lippman (Wilde Lake, 2016, etc.) pays tribute to a literary predecessor who, like her, began his study of crime as a journalist at the Baltimore Sun—James M. Cain, author of The Postman Always Rings Twice, Double ndemnity, and Mildred Pierce. Lippman's version of the sexy stranger passing through town starts with Polly Costello (that's one of her names, anyway) on a beach vacation in Fenwick, Delaware, with her husband and 3-year-old daughter, Jani. One morning she says she needs a break from the sun, then grabs her duffel and heads down the road. "What kind of woman walks out on her family? Gregg knows. The kind of woman he picked up in a bar four years ago precisely because she had that kind of wildcat energy. She scratched, she bit, she was up for anything, anywhere, anytime." Actually, poor Gregg, suddenly a single dad, doesn't know the half of it. Someone who does have a much fuller picture of Polly's background is Adam, a good-looking, Oberlin- and culinary-institute-educated fellow she runs into at a bar her first day on the lam. Neither Adam nor Polly is candid about what has brought them to stools at the High-Ho, but both stick around and get jobs there, as chef and waitress. By the time their connection in the bedroom blossoms into something more serious, the skeletons in the closet have been joined by fresh new ones. Lippman's trademark is populating a whodunit with characters so believably complicated that they don't need the mystery to carry the book. If that's not quite the case here, you can tell how much fun the author had updating the classic noir tropes, and it's contagious. Plotty, page-turning pleasure plus instructions on how to make a perfect grilled cheese sandwich and how to stab a man in the heart." (starred review)

“As shocking secrets are revealed, the reader realizes that nothing and no one can be taken at face value in Lippman's brainy, witty, socially conscious, and all-consuming inquiry into human nature and our slowly evolving sense of justice and equality...Lippman is an A-list crime writer.”

Faber

“a smart, sly riff on love in a world of trouble”

“more than a few twists, all of them satisfying”

Loving Laura Lippman´s new novel, SUNBURN. Suspenseful as hell, and she writes like a dream. It´s got a cool James M. Cain vibe. Lippman´s always good, but this is a cut above."

“ [a] richly plotted and emotionally devastating standalone Lippman plays with the concept of truth and expertly hones in on the question of whether there are some truths we never want to know.”

"After reworking Harper Lee's universe in Wilde Lake, the author gives the star-crossed souls of James M. Cain's fiction the Lippman treatment. Hence, desperate lovers Polly and Adam meet in a sleepy Delaware not-quite-beach town and harbor secrets there and in Baltimore. They circle each other warily, but it's fated they'll end up together. Their affair is threatened by the things they conceal from each other and by enemies lurking all around. Lippman's complicated femme fatale heroine and conflicted hero are more layered than one would expect from noir protagonists, and her nuanced characterizations extend beyond the couple at the center of the story. With an economy of words, she creates three—dimensional characters such as Irving, the man who hires Adam to spy on Polly, Cath, the weak link in a love triangle, and Polly's mother-in-law Savannah, who's not quite sure she's grandma material. Lippman's minute observations about modern life, human foibles, and the many faces of love are lagniappes to this tasty feast of a novel. VERDICT Just try to read this fantastic stand-alone from the creator of the “Tess Monaghan” series slowly. Modern noir at its best, it will delight old-movie lovers, satisfy suspense readers, and reward Lippman's legion of fans. [See Prepub Alert, 8/14/17.]" —Liz French, Library Journal (starred review)

“tantalizing, ingeniously constructed page-turner”

"cool and twisty" Read more...

"Lippman excels in the minutiae of trouble — insurance scams, sketchy arson investigations, getting paid in cash — and Sunburn, after a slow first 50 pages, is one of her most compulsive books, an atmospheric two-hander worthy of Raymond Chandler or Alfred Hitchcock."

“lethally seductive”

“spellbinding”