Libby Fischer Hellmann is an American

crime fiction Crime fiction, detective story, murder mystery, mystery novel, and police novel are terms used to describe narratives that centre on criminal acts and especially on the investigation, either by an amateur or a professional detective, of a crime, ...

writer who currently resides in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Roc ...

. Most of her novels and stories are set in Chicago; the

Chicago Sun-Times The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the ''Chicago T ...

notes that she "grew up in Washington, D.C., but she has embraced her adopted home of Chicago with the passion of a convert."

Early years

Raised in

Washington D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, Na ...

, Hellmann attended the

National Cathedral School National Cathedral School (NCS) is an independent Episcopal private day school for girls in grades 4–12 located on the grounds of the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., United States. Founded by philanthropist and suffragist Phoe ...

, followed by the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universit ...

. After graduating with a BA in History, she enrolled in

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, ...

's Graduate Program in Film and Television, earning an MFA in 1972. She worked in television news as an assistant film editor for

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

, then relocated to D.C. where she joined

National Public Affairs Center for Television WETA-TV (channel 26) is the primary PBS member television station in Washington, D.C. Owned by the Greater Washington Educational Telecommunications Association, it is a sister station to NPR member WETA (90.9 FM). The two outlets share studios ...

, the public affairs unit that first paired

Robert MacNeil Robert Breckenridge Ware MacNeil, OC (born January 19, 1931) is a Canadian-American journalist and writer. He is a retired television news anchor who partnered with Jim Lehrer to create '' The MacNeil/Lehrer Report'' in 1975. Early life and ...

with

Jim Lehrer James Charles Lehrer (; May 19, 1934 – January 23, 2020) was an American journalist, novelist, screenwriter, and playwright. Lehrer was the executive editor and a news anchor for the ''PBS NewsHour'' on PBS and was known for his role as a de ...

. Among other programs, she worked on the rebroadcast of the

Watergate hearings The Senate Watergate Committee, known officially as the Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, was a special committee established by the United States Senate, , in 1973, to investigate the Watergate scandal, with the power to inve ...

in 1973. Hellmann also spent time at TVN, the news syndication service underwritten by

Joseph Coors Joseph Coors, Sr. (November 12, 1917 – March 15, 2003), was the grandson of brewer Adolph Coors and president of Coors Brewing Company. Birth and education Coors was born in 1917 to Alice May Kistler (1885–1970) and Adolph Coors II. His s ...

, and NBC in Washington, DC. In 1978 she joined

Burson-Marsteller Burson Cohn & Wolfe is a multinational public relations and communications firm, headquartered in New York City. In February 2018, parent WPP Group PLC announced that it had merged its subsidiaries Cohn & Wolfe with Burson-Marsteller. The com ...

's Chicago creative department where she worked until 1985. She founded Fischer Hellmann Communications in 1985, which specializes in video production, speech writing, and spokesperson training.

Career in fiction

Hellmann's first crime fiction novel, ''An Eye For Murder'', was published in hardcover in 2002 by

Poisoned Pen Press Poisoned Pen Press is a publisher of mystery fiction based in Scottsdale, Arizona, US. Poisoned Pen Press typically publishes thirty-six new hardcover mysteries per year, thirty-six new large type editions of those hardcovers, and between thirty a ...

and in paperback by

Berkley Prime Crime Berkley Books is an imprint of the Penguin Group. History Berkley Books began as an independent company in 1955. It was founded as "Chic News Company" by Charles Byrne and Frederick Klein, who had worked for Avon; they quickly renamed it Berkl ...

. It was nominated for an

Anthony Anthony or Antony is a masculine given name, derived from the ''Antonii'', a ''gens'' ( Roman family name) to which Mark Antony (''Marcus Antonius'') belonged. According to Plutarch, the Antonii gens were Heracleidae, being descendants of Anton, ...

for Best First, and won the Best First Readers Choice Award at Chicago's Love is Murder conference. Its protagonist, video producer and single mother Ellie Foreman, was featured in three additional novels. Her second crime fiction series, featuring Private Investigator Georgia Davis, debuted in 2008 with ''Easy Innocence''. Davis had been introduced in the 2004 Ellie Foreman novel ''An Image of Death'', and Hellman said she knew immediately that she would want to write a book with Davis as protagonist. Her next book, ''Doubleback'' (October 2009, Bleak House Books), features both Davis and Foreman as co-protagonists. ''ToxiCity,'' a prequel to the Georgia Davis series, was published in 2011. A fourth thriller, ''Nobody's Child,'' was released in 2014. In 2012, ''Easy Innocence'' was translated into Spanish and published under the title ''Inocencia Fácil''. In 2010 she released ''Set the Night on Fire'', published b
Allium Press
a stand-alone thriller that goes back, in part, to the late 1960s in Chicago. A second stand-alone, ''A Bitter Veil,'' set largely in Revolutionary Iran, was published b
Allium Press
in 2012. Hellmann published "Havana Lost" in 2013. Although these three books are each stand-alone thrillers, they all deal with revolution and how it affects individuals, communities, cultures, and countries. Hellmann calls the three her "Revolution Trilogy." Hellmann has published nearly 20 short stories, most of which are available in a collection called ''Nice Girl Does Noir''. In 2013, this collection was translated into Italian and published under the title ''Ragazza Insospettabile Scrive Noir.'' In 2007 Hellmann edited ''Chicago Blues'', a short story anthology featuring over 20 prominent Chicago crime fiction authors including Stuart Kaminsky,

Sara Paretsky Sara Paretsky (born June 8, 1947) is an American author of detective fiction, best known for her novels focused on the protagonist V. I. Warshawski. Life and career Paretsky was born in Ames, Iowa. Her father was a microbiologist and moved the ...

, Barbara D'Amato, Sean Chercover,

Marcus Sakey Marcus Sakey is an American author and host of the Travel Channel show ''Hidden City''. Personal life Sakey was born in Flint, Michigan, and after marriage he settled in Chicago. Before becoming a writer, Sakey used to run a graphic design comp ...

, Joe Konrath,

Max Allan Collins Max Allan Collins (born March 3, 1948) is an American mystery writer, noted for his graphic novels. His work has been published in several formats and his '' Road to Perdition'' series was the basis for a film of the same name. He wrote the '' ...

, and others. In 2006 Hellmann founde
The Outfit Collective
a blog that was shared by eleven Chicago crime fiction authors. According to Blog Rank, it was the #7 mystery novels blog on the Web.

Awards and honors

Hellmann has been nominated for several major mystery awards, including the

Shamus Award The Shamus Award is awarded by the Private Eye Writers of America (PWA) for the best detective fiction ( P. I. = Private investigator) genre novels and short stories of the year. The Prize is given annually to recognize outstanding achievement i ...

, the Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense, the Anthony Award (twice) and the Agatha. She has won the Readers Choice/Lovey Award multiple times. Three of her novels have also been finalists in the Thriller of the Year/Foreword Reviews Magazine awards. Her short story "Letters from Havana" won Honorable Mention in the

Saturday Evening Post ''The Saturday Evening Post'' is an American magazine, currently published six times a year. It was issued weekly under this title from 1897 until 1963, then every two weeks until 1969. From the 1920s to the 1960s, it was one of the most widely ...

Short Story contest for 2014. * ''An Eye For Murder'' – Anthony Award nomination for Best First Novel; winner, Best First Novel, Readers Choice Awards (Love is Murder conference) * ''A Picture of Guilt'' – Finalist, Ben Franklin Award, Mystery/Suspense; winner, Best Traditional Mystery, Readers Choice Awards (Love is Murder conference) * ''A Shot to Die For'' – Winner, Best Traditional Mystery, Readers Choice Awards (Love is Murder conference) * "House Rules" (short story in ''Murder in Vegas'' anthology) – Anthony Award and

Agatha Award The Agatha Awards, named for Agatha Christie, are literary awards for mystery and crime writers who write in the traditional mystery subgenre: "books typified by the works of Agatha Christie . . . loosely defined as mysteries that contain no expli ...

nominations, Best Short Story * ''Easy Innocence'' – Winner, Best PI/Police Procedural, Readers Choice Award (Love is Murder conference) * ''Set the Night on Fire'' – Finalist in Foreword Magazine’s Best Suspense Novel of the Year, 2010 * ''Toxicity'' – Winner, Best Suspense Novel (Love is Murder conference) * ''A Bitter Veil'' – Finalist, 2012 Book of the Year, Chicago Writers Association; Winner, Best Suspense Novel (Love is Murder conference) * ''Havana Lost'' – Foreword Magazine Finalist for Best Thriller of the Year, 2013; Notable Page-Turner, Shelf Unbound Magazine Fiction Competition; Honorable Mention, 2014 Book of the Year, Chicago Writers Association * ''Nobody’s Child'' – Finalist, 2015 Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery and Suspense; Finalist,

, Best Indie PI NovelFinalist in the Fiction: Mystery/Suspense category; Finalist in the Fiction: Mystery/Suspense category of the 2015 USA Best Book Awards; Finalist in Chicago Writers Association Awards – Fiction Category * ''The Incidental Spy'' – Finalist, Foreword Magazine 2015 Book of the Year, Military-War

Reaction

* "In just two years Libby Fischer Hellmann, a Chicago writer and producer of training videos, has carved out an enviable place on the local mystery scene. Her first two whodunits, ''An Eye for Murder'' and ''A Picture of Guilt'', won excellent reviews for their clever blend of thrills and humor -- and for their fresh new hero, gutsy Ellie Foreman, a Chicago TV producer turned amateur sleuth who digs into the past to solve present-day murders." --

, 2004 * "Chicago is fortunate to have a number of fine mystery writers who use the city to good effect in their novels. One of the best is Libby Fischer Hellmann, whose latest whodunit, ''An Image of Death'' (Poisoned Pen, $24.95 hardcover; Berkley, $6.99 paper), once again calls Chicago home."—Chicago Sun-Times, 2004 * "Fans of the Georgia Davis PI series (''Easy Innocence'' and ''Doubleback''), and anybody who loves police procedurals written tautly, with grit and a healthy dose of noir, will love this one (''Toxicity'')." --

Seattle Post-Intelligencer The ''Seattle Post-Intelligencer'' (popularly known as the ''Seattle P-I'', the ''Post-Intelligencer'', or simply the ''P-I'') is an online newspaper and former print newspaper based in Seattle, Washington (state), Washington, United States. Th ...

, 2011

Bibliography

The Ellie Foreman Mysteries

*''An Eye for Murder'' (2002) *''A Picture of Guilt'' (2003) *''An Image of Death'' (2004) *''A Shot to Die For'' (2005) *''Jump Cut'' (2016)

The Georgia Davis Mysteries

*''Easy Innocence'' (2008) *''Doubleback'' (2009) *''ToxiCity: A Georgia Davis Prequel'' (2011) *''Nobody's Child (2014)

Stand-alone thrillers

*'' Set the Night on Fire '' (2010) *''A Bitter Veil'' (2012) *''Havana Lost'' (2013)

Anthologies/Collections

*''Chicago Blues'' (editor, 2007) *''Nice Girl Does Noir, Pt. 1'' (2010) *''Nice Girl Does Noir, Pt. 2'' (2010)

Short stories

*"The Day Miriam Hirsch Disappeared" (Amazon.com) *"Dumber Than Dirt" (''Once Upon A Crime'' anthology) *"The Rainforest Messiah" (Mysterical-E) *"The Last Radical" (Futures Magazine) *"Common Scents" (''Blondes in Trouble'' anthology) *"A Berlin Story" (''Show Business is Murder'' anthology) *"House Rules" (''Murder in Vegas'' anthology) *"A Winters' Tale" (''Techno-Noir'' anthology) *"Josef's Angel" (Amazon.com) *"Detour" (''These Guns for Hire'' anthology) *"Your Sweet Man" (''Chicago Blues'' anthology) *"The Whole World is Watching" (''Sisters on the Case'' anthology) *"High Yellow" (''A Hell of A Woman'' anthology) *"The Murder of Katie Boyle" (Sniplits) *"Capital Partners" (''Write of Spring'' Anthology) *"War Secrets" (''The Mystery Box Anthology'', edited by Brad Meltzer) *"No Good Deed" (''Fiction River Special: Crime'' anthology, edited by Kristine Kathryn Rusch; reprinted in ''25 Best Short Stories of 2014'' anthology, edited by Ed Gorman) *"Letters From Havana" (''Saturday Evening Post 2015 Fiction Anthology'')

References

External links

Official website

The Outfit Collective blog

''Chicago Reader'' interview, 2008

''Chicago Tribune'' interview, Dec. 28, 2012 {{DEFAULTSORT:Hellmann, Libby Fischer Living people 21st-century American novelists American mystery writers American women novelists Writers from Chicago Women mystery writers 21st-century American women writers Novelists from Washington, D.C. Novelists from Illinois University of Pennsylvania alumni Tisch School of the Arts alumni American women short story writers 21st-century American short story writers National Cathedral School alumni Year of birth missing (living people)