About
Crime fiction author LibbyFischer Hellmann claims she’s “writing her way around the genre.” With ninenovels and twenty short stories published, she has written thrillers, suspensemysteries, historicals, PI novels, amateur sleuth, police procedurals, and evena cozy. At the core of all her stories, however, is a crime or the possibilityof one -- the more political, the better.
She is a transplant fromWashington, D.C., where, she says, “When you’re sitting around the dinner tablegossiping about the neighbors, you’re talking politics.” Armed with a MastersDegree in Film Production from New York University, and a BA in history fromthe University of Pennsylvania, she started her career in broadcast news. She began as an assistant film editor at NBC Newsin New York, but moved back to DC where she worked with Robin McNeil and JimLehrer at N-PACT, the public affairs production arm of PBS. When Watergatebroke, she was re-trained as an assistant director and helped produce PBS’snight-time broadcasts of the hearings.
In 1978, Hellmann moved toChicago to work at Burson-Marsteller, the large public relations firm, stayinguntil 1985 when she founded Fischer Hellmann Communications. Currently, when not writing, she conducts speaker trainingprograms in platform speaking, presentation skills, media training, and crisiscommunications. Additionally, Libby also writes and produces videos.
Her first novel, AN EYE FOR MURDER, whichfeatures Ellie Foreman, a video producer and single mother, was released in2002. Publishers Weekly called ita “masterful blend of politics, history, and suspense,” and it was nominatedfor several awards. That was followed by three more entries in the EllieForeman series, which Libby describes as a cross between “Desperate Housewives”and “24.”
A few years later, Libby introduced her secondseries featuring hard-boiled Chicago PI Georgia Davis, which Chicago Tribune describes as, “a new no-nonsensedetective …. tough and smart enough to give even the legendary V.I. Warshawskia run for her money.” There arethree books in that series so far: EASY INNOCENCE (2008) and DOUBLEBACK (2009), which wasselected as a Great Lakes Booksellers’ Association “2009 Great Read,” and TOXICITY(2011), a police procedural ebook thriller that became the prequel tothe Georgia Davis series.
Her 7th novel, SETTHE NIGHT ON FIRE, (December, 2010) was a standalone thriller that goesback, in part, to the late Sixties in Chicago. Publishers Weeklydescribes it as “top-rate” and says, “Ajazzy fusion of past and present, Hellman's insightful, politically chargedwhodunit explores a fascinating period in American history.” It wasshort-listed for ForeWord Magazine’s Book of 2010 in the suspense/thrillercategory.
Her most recent novel, ABITTER VEIL, xxx
Libby has also edited a highlyacclaimed crime fiction anthology, CHICAGO BLUES (October, 2007). InMay, 2010, she published a collectionof her own short stories called NICE GIRL DOES NOIR. In 2005-2006she was the National President of Sisters in Crime, a 3,400 plus memberorganization committed to strengthening the voice of female mystery writers.
Libby blogs at “SAY THE WORDAnd You’ll Be Free,” http://libbyhellmann.com/wp, and also at “The Outfit Collective” at www.theoutfitcollective.com.
