This post is part of a book blast to reveal the cover for Libby Fischer Hellmann"s newest release Jump Cut. Libby will be awarding a $50 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.
Hired to produce a candyfloss profile of Chicago-based aviation giant, Delcroft, Ellie is dismayed when company VP Charlotte Hollander, the architect of a new anti-drone system for Delcroft, 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’s killed by a subway train.In the confusion, she finds a seemingly abandoned pack of cigarettes with a flash drive inside that belonged to the now dead man.
Ellie has the drive’s contents decrypted, but before long she discovers she’s under surveillance and thrown into the middle of a situation filled with drones, hacking, and Chinese spies that put her life and those she loves in mortal danger.
Enjoy an excerpt:
Before my gangstah-rap neighbor emptied his AK-47 into his buddy, the most exciting thing to happen in our village was the opening of a new grocery store. The store hired a pianist who played Beatles tunes, no doubt to persuade shoppers to part with their money more easily. My neighbor, rapper King Bling, was helping his fans part with their money too, but the shooting ended all that. Once he made bail, he moved and hasn’t been heard from since.
And so it goes in my little corner of the North Shore, about twenty miles from downtown Chicago. There are benefits. The King, as he’s known to his disciples, gave our cops something to do besides ticket speeders. And the new grocery store gave me the chance to buy prepared dinners so I could dispense with cooking.
Both of which come in handy when I’m producing a video, as was the case now. We didn’t finish the shoot until seven. I raced up the expressway toward home, dropped into the store, and was eyeballing a turkey pot roast—the only one left—when my cell trilled. I fished it out of my bag.
“Mom, where did you get the shoes?” I heard chatter and giggles in the background.
“What shoes, Rachel?”
“The ones you gave Jackie.” My daughter, Rachel, had successfully, if unbelievably, graduated from college and lived in an apartment in Wrigleyville. Jackie was her roommate. “Everybody thinks they’re awesome.”
About the Author:Libby Fischer Hellmann left a career in broadcast news in Washington, DC and moved to Chicago 35 years ago, where she, naturally, began to write gritty crime fiction. Twelve novels and twenty short stories later, she claims they’ll take her out of the Windy City feet first. She has been nominated for many awards in the mystery and crime writing community and has even won a few. *
With the addition of Jump Cut in 2016, her novels include the now five-volume Ellie Foreman series, which she describes as a cross between “Desperate Housewives” and “24;” the hard-boiled 4-volume Georgia Davis PI series, and three stand-alone historical thrillers that Libby calls her “Revolution Trilogy.” Her latest release, The Incidental Spy, is a historical novella set during the early years of the Manhattan Project at the U of Chicago. Her short stories have been published in a dozen anthologies, the Saturday Evening Post, and Ed Gorman’s “25 Criminally Good Short Stories” collection.
* She has been a finalist twice for the Anthony, twice for Foreword Magazines Book of the Year, the Agatha, the Shamus, the Daphne and has won the Lovey multiple times.
Buy The Incidental Spy (Sept. 2015) at Amazon
Pre-order Jump Cut (March 2016) at Amazon.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Thanks for hosting!
ReplyDeleteCongrats you have done really well...Was anything taken from your personal life to be put into your writing in any of your books?
ReplyDeleteOh boy, Taylor. That's a tough question. For the Ellie series, (which JUMP CUT is), superficially is similar. I live in the Chicago suburbs, I have a daughter (and a son), I used to be a video producer. Having said that, though, Ellie is nothing like me. First, she's taller and thinner... she's divorced (I am now but wasnt when I started the series... funny about that...), and her father is still alive. (Mine isn't). She's braver too, and more impulsive. But my other protagonist Georgia Davis, is also like me, even though she's a former cop. She reflects my darker side, while Ellie I think has the more optimistic side. Hope that helps.
ReplyDeleteBtw, I've had a couple of questions about this, so just to clarify: Even though the Amazon and Kobo prices say $4.99, I will lower them before Feb 29th so you'll only pay 99¢ if you pre-order now. If you check Nook and iBooks, you'll see the price is already 99¢ because they WONT honor a discount. Amazon and Kobo will. Hope that clears things up. Thanks again for hosting Jump Cut! Good luck on the Rafflecopter.
Thank you for the introduction to your book!
ReplyDelete