In this fourth title in the Ellie Foreman mystery series, A Shot to Die For, the Chicago documentary filmmaker finds herself in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, producing a video for a popular resort. She is soon drawn into the history of a wealthy and prominent family deeply rooted in its magnificent mansion on the shores of the lake. Ellie, a divorced single mom, finds the issues of trust and loyalties reflect the turmoil of her own life, and soon is wading waist-deep into murder.... Evocative and intelligently crafted, this is a fine addition to an Anthony Award-nominated series that began with An Eye for Murder, A Picture of Guilt, and An Image of Death.

"Incest and murder, plus the power and attraction of wealth, provide the menacing and murky background for Hellmann's less than compelling fourth novel to feature Ellie Foreman (after 2004's An Image of Death). The Chicago documentary filmmaker has a way of stumbling into murder and romance, and then coping with their competing demands in entertaining and effective fashion. Ellie's at a rest stop near Lake Geneva, Wis., when an apparently random shooting snuffs out Daria Flynn, a young woman with whom she'd just been talking. But the shooting turns out to have deep roots that lead back to Lake Geneva and the resort where Ellie had been filming. When Daria's family approaches Ellie to learn about her last moments, Ellie is drawn into the resort's dark history. She also meets handsome, rich, arrogant Luke Sutton, scion of the influential Sutton family and, because of a rumored link to Daria, a possible suspect. As usual, Hellmann creates a vivid setting, but Ellie's dithering over one fading relationship-and a bad case of raging hormones more appropriate for her 16-year-old daughter-reduce her appeal. " Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

First, picture a mansion on the water. Then wonder what's really inside....

Praise for A Picture of Guilt

"This sequel to An Eye for Murder has it all-action, excitement, increasing tension-with the usual family complications thrown in for counterweight. Recommended."

Library Journal

Praise for An Image of Death

"Not only has Hellmann created a compelling group of believable characters, but the mystery she places them in is likewise plausible and engrossing. An Image of Death is highly recommended, even if you don't live in Illinois."

Chicago Sun-Times

Libby Fischer Hellmann has already joined an elite club: Chicago mystery writers who not only inhabit the environment but also give it a unique flavor. She continues her series about documentary filmmaker and divorced single mother Ellie Foreman in fine style, taking Foreman to Lake Geneva, just over the Wisconsin state line--the faded but still comfortable "Newport of the West" where decades of overheated Chicago residents have gone to cool off in varying degrees of luxury.

At a pit stop on her way home to a Chicago suburb from Lake Geneva, where she is producing an infomercial about The Lodge--once Hugh Hefner's Playboy Club, now a family resort--Foreman talks with a woman named Daria, waiting for a ride after a cell-phone argument with someone who seems to have stranded her. A pickup roars up, a shot is fired, Daria is killed.

Because a sniper had earlier shot someone to death at a roadside oasis outside Chicago, the shooting Foreman witnessed attracts some heavy media coverage, and Foreman is seen on TV by her teenage daughter, her aged father and various friends, all justifiably worried about her penchant for getting involved in major crimes. Hellmann plays both sides of this genre-staple street: She knows it's a clean, quick way to jump-start an exciting narrative, and she makes just the smallest bit of fun about Foreman's apparent addiction to being in the wrong place at the wrong time. A third sniper shooting raises more questions: Is it a way of taking attention away from the one Foreman witnessed, which could be linked to a powerful Lake Geneva family?

Another thing Hellmann does well is capture the mixture of lunacy and boredom of the commercial video-production world. Foreman and her crew have to shoot at The Lodge's annual gala, where 200 affluent guests sit in a fake rain forest, and it's Foreman's job to keep the scene from looking ludicrous.

Although she is good at her job and is surrounded by smart and caring friends and family, Foreman is basically a sad and lonely figure: "Should I tell him that the notion of life as fundamentally joyful was as elusive to me as a lifeboat in a stormy sea?" she wonders about a former lover who wants to get back together.

It's only when she's trying to solve other people's problems (like why her gardener's America-born, half-Iraqi son seems intent on going back to fight for a country he has never seen), and especially when she's trying to unravel dangerous mysteries, that she really lights up the page with courage and energy. — Dick Adler, Chicago Tribune (August 7, 2005)

Returning from a video shoot, Ellie Foreman assists a woman abandoned at a rest stop only to witness her murder moments later. When the victim's family begs Ellie to help, she soon finds herself caught in the crosshairs of a killer.