DOUBLEBACK
By Libby Fischer Hellmann

Publishers Weekly:

Anthony-finalist Hellmann’s taut second novel of suspense to feature Chicago PI Georgia Davis (after Easy Innocence) teams Davis with video producer Ellie Foreman, the heroine of the author’s other series (A Shot to Die For, etc.). When eight year-old Molly Messenger is apparently kidnapped, a family friend turns to Ellie for help. Feeling out of her depth, Ellie asks Georgia to get involved, only to have the girl reappear unharmed just days later. After Molly’s bank manager mother, Christine, dies in a suspicious car accident, Georgia gets on a trail that leads from Wisconsin to Arizona. Meanwhile, Ellie stumbles onto a paramilitary training camp connected to Christine’s bank. Hellmann skillfully juggles disparate threads of bank fraud, extortion, drugs and illegal immigration. While some may find the use of dual narrators confusing, it works with Ellie’s cooler-head yin balancing out Georgia’s take-no-prisoners yang.

Crimespree Magazine:

Ellie Foreman's friend calls one day with a plea for help. Her neighbor's daughter, Molly, has been kidnapped. This isn't the type of thing Ellie has any experience with or knowledge of, but she has a friend who might just be able to help - PI Georgia Davis. Despite the kidnappers' insistence that no police be involved, Davis says that is the only option for Molly's mother, Christine. When Davis turns the ordeal over to the cops and Molly is amazingly returned unscathed, Davis believes the issue is behind her - close the books on that case. Until a few days later when Christine dies in a suspicious car accident and her ex-husband hires Davis to investigate what really happened to his ex-wife for fear Molly may still be in danger.

Foreman and Davis team up to investigate Christine's "accident" and find themselves investigating something much larger as they follow the trail from Wisconsin to Arizona and into the ugly depths of a government-contracted security company, illegal immigration, and drug smuggling.

Simply put, DOUBLEBACK is a book that moves. No one told Libby Fischer Hellman that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line because Davis' trip to Arizona is brimming with twists and turns. Yet, I'm certain most readers will arrive in record time. As with EASY INNOCENCE, Hellmann's plot is multi-layered and peppered with heavy social issues, which ultimately draw the reader deeper into the plot line.

Hellmann has filled DOUBLEBACK with a series of insightful juxtapositions, the most obvious being the two main characters, Ellie Foreman and Georgia Davis. Davis even notices the oddity of their friendship, one she wouldn't have expected to develop. And in every one of those juxtapositions Hellmann reveals an unstated message essential to the themes of the novel and the development of the characters.

In EASY INNOCENCE and now again in DOUBLEBACK, Davis is affected by the circumstances of a young girl, but in DOUBLEBACK we see the circumstances of a young boy also take their toll on this strong, independent female PI. Again, another example of the juxtapositions used in this case to develop the depth of Davis' character. There is nothing simple about Georgia Davis.

While Georgia Davis may have needed to, Libby Fischer Hellman doesn't need to "doubleback." She's indisputably crossed the line into the realm of great crime fiction writers. There's no going back now.

New Mystery Reader:

Bringing back together the two heroines from her duo of successful series, video producer Ellie Foreman and PI Georgia Davis, Hellmann provides readers with a wonderfully written tale of mystery that is both stimulating and highly riveting.

It begins when a neighbor’s young daughter is kidnapped and Ellie is asked her advice on how to proceed. Ellie, knowing she’s not quite up to the task of running down the facts, suggests both the police and PI Georgia Davis be brought in. Both of whom seem hardly needed when the child is unexpectedly released by the kidnappers. But when shortly thereafter the child’s mother is murdered, the mystery begins anew.

And while initially it seems that the mother, an IT specialist at a local bank, may have been involved with a 3 million dollar embezzlement scheme that could have had something to do with her death, Georgia is convinced there’s a whole lot more going on than meets the eye. And so following the clues, she’ll go down a trail that leads to a much more frightening truth than she imagined in a case involving border town drug cartels, illegal immigrants, and government paid mercenaries that all just might prove to be a bigger battle than she could possibly fight, much less win.

Hellmann’s latest is a compelling, well-mixed bag of suspense, controversial values, family loyalties, and unresolved emotions from the past that all come together in just the right way to prod the reader into thinking about some pretty heavy stuff. And amidst the swinging pendulum between right and wrong, in the end, she still manages to remain true to her characters. Even when that proves far from easy, especially with the sometimes hero, sometimes sinner, Georgia Davis - a character that definitely deserves another showing. With this type of story-telling, Hellmann proves she’s got what it takes to keep readers interested and, personally, I can’t wait to see Georgia Davis go to battle again.

Mystery Scene:

Teaming up two strong, intelligent lead characters makes for a rich, suspenseful story in Libby Fischer Hellmann’s DOUBLEBACK. Chicago private investigator Georgia Davis and video producer Ellie Foreman have each shown they can carry a novel by themselves. Hellmann’s decision to have them work together in this followup to EASY INNOCENCE brings new insights into each character and nice depth to DOUBLEBACK.

The Rap Sheet:

Not at all a cozy, Hellman’s new book is one tough cookie. When I think of Libby Fischer Hellmann, her two excellent series come to mind: the longer one about video producer and single mother Ellie Foreman, and the newer one about ex-Chicago cop-turned-private investigator Georgia Davis. (Hellmann also edited and contributed to Chicago Blues, a wonderful 2007 collection of stories about the city and its musical heritage, which should be on everyone’s shelf.)

Now Hellmann has combined her two protagonists into one strong and moving novel. Other writers have done this before: Michael Connelly merged his LAPD veteran, Harry Bosch, with his fascinating Mickey Haller, a lawyer who does business from his Lincoln Town Car. But with Doubleback, Hellmann proves she can stand up to peer pressure.

When Ellie receives a call from her best friend, Susan, asking for help in finding a missing 8-year-old girl named Molly, her first reaction is to stay clear of the whole affair. “Over the past several years,” she tells us, “I’ve had several encounters with the dark side of human nature. I don’t look for it, and don’t much like it. I prefer a boring, normal life. But then Rachel is my daughter, Jake Foreman is my father, and Luke Sutton is my boyfriend. Normal is not an option.”

Ellie decides to pass the problem on to Davis, a tough, competent private eye with whom she has worked before. The case appears to be a lose-lose situation: Molly’s mother, Chris, has been warned not to talk with the police, and she was just involved in a nasty divorce case and is worried about losing custody of her daughter. “Being a good P.I. meant knowing when to take on a case and when to hand it off,” Davis says. “This one practically screamed ‘hands off.’”

The little girl is returned safely three days later. But the plot darkens and thickens when it’s learned that mother Chris, who is the information technology manager at a large Chicago bank, may have misappropriated $3 million. Not convinced that his daughter is safe, Molly’s father hires Georgia Davis to follow the money.

Hellmann has done such a good job of bringing her dual principals to vivid life in Doubleback, that you believe every word of it.