Libby Fischer Hellmann writes Compulsively Readable Thrillers. With eighteen novels and nearly thirty short stories published, the hallmark of her writing is suspense. Her novels include thrillers, mysteries, historical fiction, PI, amateur sleuth, police procedurals, and even a cozy mystery.
Libby is a transplant from Washington, D.C., where, she says, “When you’re sitting around the dinner table gossiping about the neighbors, you’re talking politics.” Armed with a Masters Degree in Film Production from NYU, 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 documentary production arm of PBS. When Watergate broke, she was re-trained to be an assistant director and helped produce PBS’s night-time broadcasts of the hearings. She also worked at NBC, ABC, and TVN.
Hellmann moved to Chicago in 1978 to work at Burson-Marsteller, the large public relations firm, staying until 1985 when she founded Fischer Hellmann Communications. When not writing, she conducts speaker training programs in platform speaking, presentation skills, media training, and crisis communications. Libby also occasionally writes and produces videos.
As of 2025, her eighteen novels span three series with six novels in each. The Ellie Foreman Mysteries features a filmmaker and single mother in suburban Chicago. Publishers Weekly called her debut novel a “masterful blend of politics, history, and suspense,” and the Chicago Tribune lauded Ellie’s dry sense of humor. That was followed by five more mysteries, which Libby describes as a cross between “Desperate Housewives” and “24.”
In 2008 Libby introduced her second series featuring hard-boiled Chicago PI Georgia Davis, which the Chicago Tribune described as “a new no-nonsense detective… tough and smart enough to give even the legendary V.I. Warshawski a run for her money.” The six thrillers in this series have been nominated and won several awards.
She also writes historical friction, and her six “Sagas” are thematically linked novels that focus on ordinary people during extraordinary—often volatile—times during recent history. These thrillers are set in Iran, Cuba, Vietnam, WW2, and the late Sixties in the US, and have won several awards.
Libby has also edited a highly acclaimed crime fiction anthology, Chicago Blues. She has been the National President of Sisters in Crime, a 3,500 plus member organization committed to strengthening the voice of female mystery writers. For three years she hosted both a monthly interview podcast for Authors on the Air (now on Spotify) as well a monthly streaming TV interview show via the Author’s Voice network (available on her YouTube channel).
All her books and stories can be bought on her store, https://store.libbyhellmann.com. Finally, she invites you to join her newsletter here, where she often runs sales and giveaways along with the occasional rant.