We are delighted to welcome author Libby Fischer Hellmann to Omnimystery News today.
After a long break, Libby brings back Ellie Foreman in her fifth mystery, Jump Cut (The Red Herrings Press; February 2016 trade paperback and ebook formats). We recently had the opportunity to catch up with Libby to talk more about the series.
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Omnimystery News: It's been ten years since we last saw Ellie Foreman. Why now … and why Ellie and not your other series character, Georgia Davis?
Photo provided courtesy of
Libby Fischer Hellmann;
Photo credit Michael Candee,
First Light Creative
Libby Fischer Hellmann: What brought me back to Ellie, aside from fan requests, was the story. As soon as I decided to write a "post-Snowden" espionage thriller, I knew Ellie was the character to anchor it. If you've read any of the earlier Ellie books, you know why. The fact that she could produce a video for a giant aviation company in Chicago (that also manufactured attack drones and had close ties to the Defense community) sealed the deal.
OMN: For readers who may not be familiar with Ellie, tell us a little more about her.
LFH: Ellie is a Chicago video producer and single mother. She lives on the North Shore about 20 miles from the city itself. Born and raised in Chicago, she married, had a daughter, then got divorced. Her mother passed when Ellie was in her twenties, but her father is still around, and plays a vital role in all the books. Ellie is outgoing and has a self-deprecating sense of humor as well as a strong sense of fairness and justice, so when she sees situations that aren't, she is apt to get involved. Those situations usually (but not always) arise from the corporate videos she produces. She used to be rather impulsive, but as she's matured, she's more thoughtful. Still, she tends to end up in trouble and needs to get herself out of it. She's had two serious relationships since her divorce — and now has settled in rather comfortably with Luke Sutton. Unlike Georgia Davis, who is a loner, Ellie has a support system of friends and family around her. I like to describe the Ellie books as a cross between Desperate Housewives and 24, but Jump Cut is much more 24 than any of the others.
OMN: Jump Cut covers several topical issues, such as Chinese spying, hacking fears, and terrorism. How did you go about researching the plot points of the story?
LFH: Curiously, this was an easy book to research. While I devoted weeks to nothing but research for each of my historical thrillers, in the case of Jump Cut, I just had to watch the news, read articles and essays online, and watch Citizen Four. As for modern espionage tradecraft, so much of it is public or quasi-public that it surprised me.
Of course, I did interview sources. But, as you might expect, people were reluctant to talk and most didn't want their names included in the acknowledgments if they did. Some organizations, specifically the Old Crows (who specialize in military intelligence activities including drones) never returned my emails. Still, I was able to construct a pretty authentic story. At least I think I so. And although I purposely didn't focus too much on the "how-to's" and technical side of espionage, my mother's complaint is that there was too much of it in the book. I guess you can't win — at least with mothers. J
By the way, Ellie's growing cynicism isn't so much about the lack of ethics in intelligence gathering as it is about the consolidation of power by elite groups, as described in Bill Moyers Anatomy of the Deep State by Mike Lofgren. And yes, it does mirror my own position.
OMN: Tell us something about Jump Cut that isn't mentioned in the synopsis.
LFH: In Jump Cut, I focus in on the Uyghurs, who are the 2nd largest ethnic minority in China, and they are Muslims. They are also a mix of Han and Caucasian. And feel more kinship with the "Stans" (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkestan) than China. Like many other Americans, I had no idea that the Uyghurs existed, and as a former history major, I found this fascinating.
At the risk of oversimplification, their story is not new. The Uyghurs want more autonomy within their territory; the Chinese government says no — largely because of huge natural gas deposits in their region. Conflict between them is nothing new, but now the Chinese allege that the Uyghurs are Islamic terrorists, hell bent on destroying Chinese civilization. The Uyghurs claim they're not and that they are being oppressed, discriminated against, and, in some cases, exterminated by the Chinese government.
The question, of course, is which side to believe. And how to respond, particularly since the West is facing similar issues. Very little of the Uyghurs' plight is reported in the mainstream American press, btw, but that's another story. And it's certainly not widely reported within China. For more about the Uyghurs, I recommend an Australian documentary you can find here.
OMN: Suppose Ellie Foreman were interviewing you. What would be her first question … and what would be your answer?
LFH: Do you like wine? Would you like a glass? Red or white? My answer? Sadly, I'm in the process of giving up alcohol. It's not good for my ulcers.
OMN: Jump Cut is set in Chicago. What is it about the city that makes it a great setting for mysteries and thrillers? And after living in Chicago and writing about the city for so long, does it still surprise you?
LFH: Yes, Chicago always surprises me. It's such a blend of sophistication and coarseness … light and dark … corruption and corruption. Just when I think it can't get any more parochial or incestuous, some new scandal rears its head. But there's also a brazen quality to the corruption. Unlike other places, Chicago seems to embrace its "bad boys" with a perverse pride, which I find — dare I say it — almost endearing.
The problem now, though, is that the cartels now run crime in Chicago, and along with the drugs, they've brought a cavalier and casual attitude toward violence and death. It's just about out of control these days … and even the cops don't know what to do. That scares me.
OMN: You're active on social media. What kinds of feedback do you get from readers?
LFH: I spend most of my time on Facebook, then my blog, then Twitter. And I'm on Pinterest too. That's about it. I get all sorts of questions and feedback from fans, and, more and more, from aspiring writers. Each have their own priorities. Fans ask me about the characters and what's going to happen to them going forward … sometimes they object to turns I've taken with them. But all in good humor, happily. Writers want to know EVERYTHING. How to write, how to publish, how to market.
OMN: What are some of your outside interests? And do any of these find their way into your books?
LFH: That assumes I have a life outside of writing. I'm not kidding. Aside from reading, which is still my #1 hobby, I love to travel. I've been all over the country, to Cuba, and Europe frequently. And yes, what I've seen does end up in my books (Havana Lost … Prague … and coming up, the Amalfi Coast.) I also work out (and have a short story about it), love listening to Blues (edited the Chicago Blues anthology), and love watching films.
OMN: As a reader, when selecting a book to read for pleasure, what do you look for?
LFH: My reading is probably equally split between fiction and nonfiction. I love historical biographies, and books about places I might want to write about, like Bletchley Park, Iran, or the Manhattan Project. For fiction, I love suspense and read a lot of thrillers … although I like commercial fiction too.
OMN: What's next for you and your imprint The Red Herrings Press?
LFH: Right now, I'm in the middle of my second novella that takes place during World War II. This one is about German POWs who were in camps here. The first was The Incidental Spy, which was about a woman who is forced to spy on the early years of the Manhattan project. When the POW novella is finished, I'll combine both into something that likely will have the word "Homefront" in the title. That will be published under The Red Herrings Press imprint. In addition, I published Havana Lost and Nobody's Child under that imprint and have just brought out four "4-packs" of my short stories.
My next major undertaking is going to be a crime caper novel. I introduced the characters in a short story called "Capital Partners" (which is widely available online) and I plan to continue their journey. Not sure who or what will publish that one. Then I'll probably write either another Georgia or Ellie book. At least that's the plan.
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She is a transplant from Washington, D.C. Armed with a Masters Degree in Film Production from New York University, and a BA in history from the University of Pennsylvania, she started her career in broadcast news. She began as an assistant film editor at NBC News in New York, but moved back to DC where she worked with Robin McNeil and Jim Lehrer at N-PACT, the public affairs production arm of PBS. When Watergate broke, she was re-trained as an assistant director and helped produce PBS's night-time broadcasts of the hearings. In 1978, Hellmann moved to Chicago to work at Burson-Marsteller, the large public relations firm, staying until 1985 when she founded Fischer Hellmann Communications. Currently, when not writing, she conducts speaker training programs in platform speaking, presentation skills, media training, and crisis communications. Libby also writes and produces videos.
For more information about the author, please visit her website at LibbyHellmann.com and her author page on Goodreads, or find her on Facebook and Twitter.
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Jump Cut by Libby Fischer Hellmann
An Ellie Foreman Mystery
Publisher: The Red Herrings Press
Chicago video producer Ellie Foreman has been absent from thriller author Libby Fischer Hellmann's repertoire for almost a decade. Now, in Jump Cut, she's back … and is soon entangled in a web of espionage, murder, and suspicion that threatens to destroy what she holds most dear.
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.
Ellie gets the drive's contents decrypted, but before long discovers she's under surveillance. Suspecting Delcroft and the ambitious Hollander are behind it, she's unconvinced when Hollander tells her the dead man was a Chinese spy. Ellie and her boyfriend, Luke, try to find answers, but they don't realize how far they have ventured into the dangerous echelons of hidden power — where more lives are on the line―including their own.
— Jump Cut by Libby Fischer Hellmann. Click here to take a Look Inside the book.
