Perilous Polly
Bestselling author Laura Lippman’s twenty-third novel, Sunburn, is a twisty-turny romantic thriller, with a beautiful and sexy redheaded protagonist, who, after a bad marriage, decides to take control of her destiny, and uses her magnetism to manipulate people—a classic femme fatale.
Polly Costello, walks out on her second husband, Gregg and daughter suddenly, intuiting that he was about to abandon her with the kid. She lands up at the one-horse town of Belleville and takes up a job as a waitress in a bar. It turns out that she had killed her abusive first husband, went to prison and was released by a governor’s pardon. Only a crooked insurance agent knows that Polly has a fortune from insurance and a malpractice claim, waiting for her to collect it. He hires a private detective, the good-looking Adam Bosk, to trail her and find out her plans. Adam gets a job as a chef in the same bar to get closer to Polly, discovers that she is not so easy to crack and ends up falling hopelessly in love with her.
However, he is never sure if she loves him too, or is just using him. Still, he is willing to give up his old life and settle down with her; she shows willingness to do the same, but she keeps him and the reader guessing.
Lippman gradually builds up the stormy weather outside and in the emotional turbulence between Polly and Adam and then turns up the heat till the explosion takes place. The bitter-sweet ending is totally unexpected. Polly is an admirable woman, who is aware how tough it is for an impoverished woman like her to get by in a man’s world, but has the smarts to research exactly how to kill a man with a knife to his heart, so that he dies with one blow. If it’s her life on the line, she knows what she has to do to survive.
