Sunburn (Lippman) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews

Laura Lippman's Sunburn may be set in 1995, before Google searches made it a whole lot harder to vanish and start afresh elsewhere, but it takes its inspiration…from '40s noir: Double Indemnity, Mildred Pierce, The Postman Always Rings Twice…Sunburn, though cool and twisty, has more heart than expected. It's generous in other ways, too. The particular atmosphere of unlovely Belleville is deftly conveyed…People move in and out of the narrative with their own baggage and preoccupations. What they choose to tell us is very subjective and not always directly relevant, and this clamor of voices gives the novel satisfying depth and texture. There's a sense here that we're brushing up against many lives, many versions of the truth.
Harriet Lane - New York Times Book Review


I feel like it creates a whole new category, which I’m thinking of as "femme noir."… She’s taken this traditional noir structure of a man sweeping in to save a woman who then turns around and eats his heart out—she’s turned that notion on its head.
Wall Street Journal


The ingenious plot evolves into myriad twists that are as believable as they are surprising.… Sunburn delivers one of the year’s most intriguing mysteries.
Associated Press Staff


A masterful mix from a total pro.
People


(Starred review) [S]corching. Adam’s part in her potential downfall—comes to a boiling point. This is Lippman at her observant, fiercest best, a force to be reckoned with in crime fiction.
Publishers Weekly


(Starred review) Lippman's complicated femme fatale heroine and conflicted hero are more layered than one would expect from noir protagonists…. With an economy of words, she creates three-dimensional characters.… [A] tasty feast of a novel. —Liz French
Library Journal


(Starred review) Ingeniously constructed and extremely suspenseful, the novel keeps us guessing right up until its final moments. Lippman is a popular and dependable writer, and this homage to classic noir showcases a writer at the height of her powers.
Booklist


(Starred review) Lippman’s version of the sexy stranger passing through town.… [Her] trademark is populating a whodunit with characters so believably complicated they don’t need the mystery to carry the book.… Plotty, page-turning pleasure plus.
Kirkus Reviews