"Sunburn" by Laura Lippman

I discovered "Sunburn" in one of those Kindle "Deals of the Day" emails and thought it was worth spending buck ninety-nine to try.

What a bargain.

This is a thriller of a novel, published in 2018, and written in noir style.  As I read it, I was seeing this story as a black & white 1940's movie starring Barbara Stanwyck and John Garfield.  

In the beginning of the book, we meet Polly, who has just ditched her husband and one year old daughter while on a vacation at the Delaware beaches.  She settles in an out of the way motel in a small town off the beaten path between said beaches and Baltimore.  We also meet Adam, who also finds himself at that same dump of a motel due to "car trouble".  However, we soon learn that Adam has other purposes on his agenda.  He has been hired to find and follow Polly, but who hired him, and exactly why is he following her and just what is it he supposed to find out about her?

Adam and Polly then take jobs at low rent diner/bar.  She as waitress/barmaid, he as a short order cook, and lo and behold, they fall for each other.  Both of them, though, have reservations about just who this person with whom they are falling in love (lust?) is.  Can they trust this person?  We also meet, among others through chapters with alternating points of view, a crooked cop, an unscrupulous insurance broker, the waitress that also works at the greasy spoon, and we learn about Polly's two marriages, two children, and her, shall we say, checkered past.

In her afterward to the novel, Lippman tells us that this story is in the style of hard-boiled, noir fiction writher James M. Cain, who authored such classics as "Double Indemnity","The Postman Always Rings twice", and "Mildred Pierce", and she nails this tribute perfectly.  As you read it, you can almost visualize the dust motes swirling in the sunlight that comes through the torn window blinds of the cheap motel where Polly and Adam are shacked up.

I have to say that I loved this book, and I give it the full Four Grandstander Stars.  If only Billy Wilder were still with us to make it into a movie.

(NOTE:  Sharp eyed movie buffs will note that I mixed a metaphor in the body of this post.  I suspect that my pal David Cicotello will be all over it.)

One Last Visit From Janus

 

Before closing the book on 2025, I thought that I would call on the ancient Roman god, Janus, one more time in order to look at the year that was.

In many ways, 2025 was a most unsettling year due to the political situation in which we find ourselves these days.  I'm personally quite upset with what our country has become, and I struggle with, as the great cartoon from the New Yorker puts it, the "desire to be well-informed with the desire to remain sane."

However, I will choose not to address THOSE issues in this monograph today.  This blog was never intended to be one to address such weighty and divisive issues.  I will resolve, however, to try to be a kinder person in the year(s) ahead and do what I can to help those who need it.

I will also continue on in The Grandstander with my thoughts on movies and television shows that I have seen, books that I have read, games that I have attended, bets that I have won (and lost), and trips that we have taken.  And celebrity obituaries.  And endless screeds about the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The Grandstander blog, by the way, turned 16 years old on January 8.  This post will be the 2,876th on this site.

On the topic of trips, Linda and I spent forty nights in 2025 where we were not at  home sleeping in our own bed.  These ranged from little one night getaways in downtown Pittsburgh and other western Pennsylvania spots, to our wonderful extended stays in Hilton Head, SC, Cooperstown, NY, and Nashville, TN, and the highlight of the year, our Viking cruise through Canada and the eastern seaboard.  We realize how fortunate we are to be able to have made these trips, and we take none of it for granted.  We made wonderful memories, made new friends, and saw some unforgettable sights.  We were, indeed, blessed in this regard.

Looking ahead, the only thing on our calendar is what we are hoping will become an annual trip to Hilton Head.  Maybe a trip to New York City at some point, but nothing is booked yet.

In the world of sports, I have three specific events that will stand out for me from 2025.  The first was our trip to Nashville to see the great Lionel Messi play for Inter Miami of Major League Soccer.  In an analogy that I have used many times, when you get a chance to see Willie Mays play, you take it.  Messi delivered for us by scoring three goals and assisting on two others that night.  Second, was our trip to Boston to see the Steelers play the Patriots in Foxboro with our new friends from our cruise, Patti and Barry Rowe.  Third, was the run of the Robert Morris University men's basketball team to both the Horizon League's regular season and conference tournament championships and a earn a trip to the NCAA Tournament.  And I'll throw in one more:  having Aaron Rodgers play a season at quarterback for the Steelers.  It didn't end up the way we had hoped, but we did get to see one of the all-time greats close out his career in Black and Gold.

I saw twenty-five movies in 2025.  I count among these some older movies that I had never seen before.  If it was a first for me, it goes on the list.  Here are my top five:

1. Nuremberg
2. September 5 (2024 release)
3. Song Sung Blue
4. Billy Joel And So It Goes (HBO Max)
5. Ninotchka (1939)

Of the twenty-five movies that I saw, only seven of them were in an honest-to-God movie theater.  The rest were seen via streaming or DVD in the comfort of my home.   We also saw two classic movies in theaters this year (Casablanca and Sunset Boulevard), so that means we made only nine visits to a movie theater.  Convenience, home comforts, and 65 inch HD flatscreens are great, but they come at the cost of us losing the "theater experience".  It is a slippery slope, as they say.

I read thirty-seven books in 2025.  If I had to give you a best list, I would say that the best non-fiction book I read was "Charlie Hustle", a biography of Pete Rose by Keith O'Brien, and the best fiction book was "Sunburn" by Laura Lippman.  As you can see, I've linked my original write-ups of these books in this post.  My goal for 2026 is to read thirty books.  I am already on my third book here in January.

Sadly, I only played 13 rounds of golf in 2025.  There were reasons and excuses for that, of course.  It is my sincere hope that I play more than that in this coming year.  Setting twenty rounds as my goal for 2026.

And, of course, I close out by thanking all of you Loyal Readers out there for sticking with this.  Please keep reading and commenting and tell your friends about The Grandstander.

I lost my Executive Assistant this year.

How we miss her. 😢