Libby Fischer Hellmann Books in Order

In Chicago's Jewish Lawndale neighborhood in 1938, teenager Jake Foreman develops a crush on actress Miriam Hirsch. Her attachment to a possible gangster frustrates his hopes, until her sudden disappearance turns his fascination into a troubling mystery.

Documentary filmmaker Ellie Foreman receives a letter linking her to a recently deceased stranger. When his landlady also dies and his possessions are stolen, Ellie investigates connections between contemporary Chicago politics and events in wartime Prague.

Former police officer Georgia Davis investigates a teenager's murder after the accused man's sister hires her. What appears to be an obvious case leads into a darker world of wealthy schoolgirls, businessmen, and the dangerous trade in innocence.

Filmmaker Ellie Foreman recognizes a murder defendant in unused footage that could establish his innocence. When interference ruins the apparent alibi, surveillance, mob attention, and FBI questioning suggest that her video has exposed something larger than the killing.

A video of a young woman's murder arrives at Ellie Foreman's home, prompting her to investigate with police officer Georgia Davis. The victim's work as a diamond courier leads them toward Eastern European secrets, money laundering, and shady property deals.

After speaking with a woman at a Wisconsin rest stop, filmmaker Ellie Foreman witnesses her fatal shooting. The victim's family asks about her final moments, drawing Ellie into a resort's history and an influential family's secrets.

After a kidnapped girl returns home, her mother's fatal car accident raises questions about missing bank funds. Private investigator Georgia Davis joins filmmaker Ellie Foreman to trace a trail involving border crime, drug smuggling, and corporate contractors.

When Katie Boyle's body falls from a closet in a North Shore health club, Ellie Foreman and Georgia Davis must investigate. This short mystery recounts the first collaboration between the filmmaker and the future private investigator.

Set amid Berlin's cabaret culture in the early 1930s, this historical short story examines desperate revelry under the shadow of approaching catastrophe. The apparent frivolity of nightlife masks a growing sense of fear and impending conflict.

Ellie Foreman tries to comfort a neighbor after the death of her husband, but the circumstances prove more complicated than ordinary bereavement. This short mystery draws the filmmaker into questions surrounding a wealthy household and its surviving spouse.

Georgia Davis is still serving as a Village police officer and hopes to become a detective. In this early short story featuring the investigator, she sees a newly assigned case as a possible route to advancement.

A professional hit woman kills the wrong target, turning a routine assignment into an unexpected problem. This short noir story follows the consequences of a mistaken mark, taking its central character beyond the certainty of her deadly work.

A Midwestern couple's Las Vegas trip takes an unexpected turn when they discover a valuable hidden cache. What seems like a stroke of luck becomes dangerous when the box's owners arrive, transforming their holiday into a darkly comic predicament.

This collection brings together historical and contemporary crime stories, including cases featuring Ellie Foreman and Georgia Davis. Chicago settings, morally compromised characters, and encounters with violence connect tales that range across different eras and approaches to noir.

Two older criminals seek redemption amid the seedier streets of Chicago's Chinatown. This short crime story places their hopes against a backdrop of shabby restaurants, nighttime danger, and the uncertain possibility of leaving a criminal past behind.

Inspired by a former radical who rebuilt her life under an assumed identity, this short story examines the strain of concealment. An apparently ordinary existence raises questions about fear, family, and the burden of hiding a dangerous past.

FBI veteran Zack Mueller meets an arms buyer and environmental anthropologist Dora Anuncion over a proposed deal for rainforest communities. Their resistance to threatened oil drilling draws him into competing interests involving weapons, government, and corporate power.

Two Chicago police officers from different generations patrol during the unrest surrounding the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Their conflicting attitudes toward violence against demonstrators drive this short story about authority, conscience, and a city in political turmoil.

A blues bass player's capacity for love and forgiveness is challenged by circumstances he cannot control. Moving between Chicago in the 1950s and 1980s, this short story combines a musician's personal struggles with the weight of the past.

After a fire kills her father and brother, Lila Hilliard survives another apparent attempt on her life. Her search for answers uncovers a buried family secret rooted in Chicago's radical movements and the unrest of 1968.

After a suburban library director dies in an apparent fall, Julia Fairbanks investigates unsettling emails that suggest murder. Her search for the truth about her mother’s close friend places her in danger from a killer hiding behind an accidental death.

Rookie police officer Georgia Davis joins two detectives to investigate bodies discovered in landfills and dumpsters. Questions about childhood cancer complicate the inquiry, while tensions involving her detective boyfriend threaten both their partnership and their personal relationship.

American student Anna marries Nouri and moves to Tehran, hoping to find a welcoming family. Iran's revolution transforms their lives, and increasing restrictions, marital conflict, and danger threaten her hopes of returning to the United States.

A woman carrying a secret selects a target in an airport garage, unaware that he also has something to hide. Both are fleeing threats to their lives, and their encounter raises the possibility of finding safety and companionship together.

Car-loving ex-convict Derek resolves to stay out of trouble, until the keys to a Mercedes tempt him into another theft. Finding a dead body inside turns his impulsive joyride into a much more dangerous predicament in Chicago.

On the eve of Cuba's revolution, Francesca Pacelli escapes her Mafia father's control to join her rebel lover. Their choices reverberate across three generations, as family ambitions and the promise of wealth draw the Pacellis back toward Cuba.

A bloodstained message alerts private investigator Georgia Davis to a pregnant half sister she never knew existed. Searching for Savannah leads Georgia into Chicago's sex trafficking networks, where an old enemy threatens both women's chances of escape.

Two women discover that their husbands are caught in a Ponzi scheme and decide to intervene themselves. This financial crime story follows their response to the deception, turning an apparent business disaster into a struggle over who controls what happens next.

Lena flees Nazi Germany and rebuilds her life among refugee scientists at the University of Chicago. After a family tragedy, she is forced to spy on nuclear fission experiments, placing her new life at risk during the Manhattan Project’s early years.

In Leipzig at the outbreak of World War II, a young physics student and an older scientist collaborate on splitting the atom. Each conceals secrets that could place the other in mortal danger as their scientific work brings them together.

An executive abruptly cancels Ellie Foreman's corporate video, apparently alarmed by a man captured in her footage. His subsequent death and a concealed flash drive draw the filmmaker into surveillance, espionage allegations, and a dangerous aerospace company's secrets.

Three stories explore wartime danger in and around Chicago, where a farm girl becomes entangled with German prisoners, a refugee spies on atomic research, and an actress’s disappearance exposes intrigue within the city’s Jewish community.

Private investigator Georgia Davis investigates the assassination of a political resistance leader whose gunman also dies. Fake social media profiles, missing relatives, and powerful interests complicate her search, while her estranged mother's return creates a personal crisis.

During World War II, Illinois farm girl Mary-Catherine becomes entangled with two German soldiers held in a nearby prisoner-of-war camp. Her certainty that she has found love clashes with the possibility that one prisoner has ulterior motives.

After American forces destroy their Vietnamese village in 1968, sisters Mai and Tâm flee to Saigon. Mai works in a bar while Tâm joins the Viet Cong, separating them as war tests their survival and family bond.

Two Cuban brothers exchange letters as one prepares to join the other in the United States. Overhearing military officers discuss Soviet rockets in Havana draws the waiter brother into events that threaten both men before the Cuban Missile Crisis.

A former Ku Klux Klan member working in a prison library must teach a newly incarcerated Black man to read. Their uneasy partnership in the 1960s becomes a troubling encounter with prejudice, power, and the consequences of helping.

Bank manager Rachel Foreman loses her job after a cyber-scam exposes a female executive to identity theft and murder accusations. With help from her mother, Ellie, she follows hackers and cybercriminals through an increasingly dangerous digital investigation.

Private investigator Georgia Davis examines a sudden death when a family trip brings her near a woman fleeing a fundamentalist Mormon spouse. After a near-fatal hit-and-run, their resemblance raises questions about mistaken identity and the real target.

Jewish teenager Max escapes Nazi persecution and reaches Chicago, then joins the American Army after learning his parents were murdered. Trained in intelligence at Camp Ritchie, he returns to Europe on missions that bring him toward his devastated hometown.