Showing results by author "Libby Fischer Hellmann" in All Categories

August 1944. Prague is where the story begins, with a seemingly casual exchange. But in wartime, is any act, any one thing, trivial? Decades later, in contemporary Chicago, the consequences emerge through the medium of television. Documentary filmmaker Ellie Foreman gets a letter prompted by the success of her show Celebrate Chicago. One viewer was the elderly Ben Sinclair. When he suddenly dies, his landlady, Mrs. Fleischman, finds Ellie's name among his effects and writes to her.

It all began with a line of Persian poetry . . . Anna and Nouri, both studying in Chicago, fall in love despite their very different backgrounds. Anna, who has never been close to her parents, is more than happy to return with Nouri to his native Iran, to be embraced by his wealthy family. Beginning their married life together in 1978, their world is abruptly turned upside down by the overthrow of the Shah, and the rise of the Islamic Republic.

When three bodies turn up in rapid succession, all in landfills or waste disposal dumpsters, rookie cop Georgia Davis is drawn into the investigation. Teaming up with her detective boyfriend Matt and his friend, Detective Sergeant John Stone, Georgia must work out who's responsible for the killings, but there's little evidence to go on. The case also tests the strength of Georgia's relationship with Matt - complicating the situation is the daughter of a real estate mogul, who also happens to have her eye on Matt. Who's behind these gruesome killings?

The big news story in Chicago is the murder trial of Johnny Santoro, a dock worker whose girlfriend has been killed. Most Chicagoans are betting on a quick guilty verdict, but Ellie Foreman has doubts about his complicity - Santoro is strangely familiar to her. Checking back to the outtakes of a video project in progress while the murder took place, Ellie finds evidence that could save Santoro from a lifetime behind bars.

How do you solve a murder when there are 42,000 suspects? That’s the task facing Chicago PI Georgia Davis, hired to hunt down those behind the assassination of resistance leader Dena Baldwin at a demonstration 14 months after the 2016 election. The gunman, on a nearby hotel rooftop, dies within minutes of the shooting. As Georgia sifts through Dena’s 42,000 Facebook followers, she discovers that unknown enemies hiding behind fake profiles have infiltrated the group. She finds others who will do whatever it takes - including murder - to shield right-wing, wealthy elites.

Hired to produce a candy-floss profile of Chicago-based aviation giant Delcroft, Ellie is dismayed when company VP Charlotte Hollander trashes the production and cancels the project. Ellie believes Hollander was spooked by shots of a specific man in the video footage. But when Ellie arranges to meet the man to find out why, he is killed by a subway train before they can talk. In the confusion, she finds a seemingly abandoned pack of cigarettes with a flash drive inside that belonged to the now-dead man.

An Image of Death sees Ellie in the midst of producing another video documentary, financed by a successful Chicago real estate developer. But things take an unexpected turn one winter night when a mysterious package arrives anonymously on Ellie's doorstep. Inside, she finds a surveillance video apparently showing the murder of a young woman. Who was the victim, why was she murdered, and what is her connection to Ellie?

In this fourth crime thriller of the Ellie Foreman series, the Chicago documentary filmmaker finds herself in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Returning from a video shoot at the Lodge, a newly renovated, upscale resort, Ellie befriends a woman who claims her ride abandoned her at a highway rest stop. But Ellie’s kindness is brutally cut short when a pickup truck pulls up, the rear window opens, and the woman is shot dead.

A collection of 15 crime fiction short stories in print., some of them award-winners, by author Libby Fischer Hellmann. The collection is divided into two parts: The Ellie Foreman/Georgia Davis stories and Chicago Then and Now; Other Places, Other Times.

With little work during the pandemic, Chicago PI Georgia Davis agrees to help the best friend of fellow sleuth Ellie Foreman. Susan Siler’s aunt died suddenly, following her COVID booster, and Susan’s distraught mother wants the death investigated. However, Georgia’s investigation is interrupted by a family trip to Nauvoo, Illinois, the onetime Mormon heartland. It’s there that her life unexpectedly intersects with the runaway spouse of a Mormon fundamentalist.

As World War II rages across Europe and the Pacific, its impact ripples through communities in the heartland of America. A farm girl is locked in a dangerous love triangle with two Germans soldiers held in an Illinois POW camp. Another German, a war refugee, is forced to risk her life spying on the developing Manhattan Project in Chicago. And espionage surrounds the disappearance of an actress from the thriving Jewish community of Chicago's Lawndale.