My novel, DOUBLEBACK,(October 2009) features both Ellie Foreman and Georgia Davis as co-protagonists, and I’m often asked how they (fictionally) met. Georgia made an appearance in A PICTURE OF GUILT, and then more substantively in AN IMAGE OF DEATH, but they already had a passing acquaintance. How they met is explained in this short story, written and published in 2009. However it takes place prior to AN EYE FOR MURDER when Georgia was still a cop. The story was published in a limited numbered edition. It can also be found in NICE GIRL DOES NOIR, in print and audio as well as electronic formats.

This Ellie Foreman story was published in 2005 in the TECHNO NOIR anthology, edited by Eva Batonne and Jeffrey Marks. Although the anthology was released only a few years ago, it was pre-Facebook and Twitter.

In 1999 ‘70s radical Kathleen Soliah was arrested after spending 23 years under the alias of Sara Jane Olson. In 1975 she was charged with attempting to bomb police cars with the SLA, the group that kidnapped newspaper heiress Patty Hearst. But Olson vanished after she was charged and reinvented herself as a housewife - changing her name, marrying a doctor and becoming a mother of three in St. Paul, Minnesota. During that time she was active in the community and was known to be a progressive. I am old enough to remember her original crime, but what intrigued me was her life on the lam. Did she panic every time she saw a police car or heard a siren? How did she explain her youth to her husband and kids? How does someone with something to hide live? This short story is the result of that curiosity. It was published in FUTURES Magazine in 2001.

Short stories are the poetry of prose. They are precise, cut to the bone, every word a necessity. Not many authors develop that control. Libby Fischer Hellmann has the hand of a master. The stories in this first volume of Nice Girl Does Noir have all been published previously in traditional venues. They’re unified by the presence of two remarkable women: Ellie Foreman and Georgia Davis. Anyone familiar with Libby’s novels knows these names. The two characters are different in history, family, appearance, and outlook, but they’re alike in the ways that matter. They care about justice. They’re fiercely protective of those they love. They can’t let a mystery go uninvestigated nor a crime unsolved. And they’re always struggling to be better than they fear they are. Take it from a guy who knows her well: Libby is a nice girl. But she writes noir with a savvy edge honed on the hard, dark knowledge of the evil possible in us all. With each story she opens a door to a room that holds a demon—bigotry and politics in her award-winning debut effort “The Day Miriam Hirsch Disappeared”, greed in “Common Scents”, deadly desire in “A Winter’s Tale”—and with prose too damn good to resist, she seduces us inside. So you should probably take this not only as an invitation but also as a warning. If you choose to read on, I can guarantee that Libby’s stories will take you places nice people don’t often go. CONTENTS: Approx 24,000 words THE DAY MIRIAM HIRSCH DISAPPEARED, 2000 An Ellie Foreman Story COMMON SCENTS, 2004 A Georgia Davis Story THE LAST RADICAL, 2001 An Ellie Foreman Story A WINTER’S TALE, 2005 An Ellie Foreman Story THE MURDER OF KATIE BOYLE, 2009 A Georgia Davis/Ellie Foreman Story

This story was written for my friend Joe Konrath’s anthology, THESE GUNS FOR HIRE (Bleak House, 2007). As he said in the introduction, this was one of my first attempts at writing hard boiled, and I found it liberating. In fact, it pushed me in an altogether new direction.

Did a little boy actually see an Angel in a children's war camp in Germany? Did that angel save his life? What about the ramifications twenty years later? JOSEF'S ANGEL begins during World War Two but jumps to Chicago in the 1970's. The plot and characters surprised me; I didn't know the story would turn out the way it did. Happily, that's one of the joys of writing crime fiction. JOSEF'S ANGEL was originally published by the Amazon Shorts program in 2006. It is a short story and was subsequently included in Hellmann's collection of stories, NICE GIRL DOES NOIR.'

If you're a fan of THE HELP and you like dark crime fiction, you'll like this story. I grew up in Washington, DC, and I always wanted to set a story there. For some reason, it never quite worked until now. HIGH YELLOW remains one of my favorites, not just because it triggered so many memories of my childhood, but for what it says about the culture of what was - until the Kennedy administration - essentially a southern city. It was written for and published in Megan Abbott's A HELL OF A WOMAN: An Anthology of Female Noir (Busted Flush Press, 2007).

This story was written and published in the SISTERS ON THE CASE anthology edited by Sara Paretsky (Signet, 2007). I originally wrote this as an exercise to prepare for writing SET THE NIGHT ON FIRE. This story, like the longer thriller, takes place - in part—during the Chicago Democratic Convention of 1968. But it differs from the novel in that it's written from a Chicago cop's point of view rather than the demonstrators'. Still, I hope that, like a delicious hors d'oeuvre, it whets your appetite by capturing the passion, the hope, and the fury of that era.

The following short story was published in the EXPLETIVE DELETED anthology (Bleak House, 2008) edited by Jen Jordan. I loved researching the seamier, sleazier parts of Chinatown where menus are stained, kitsch is king, and even walking down the street after dark is risky. Add in two older criminals seeking redemption, and the result was irresistible. At least to me.

This short story first appeared in the SHOW BUSINESS IS MURDER anthology, edited by the late, great Stuart Kaminsky (Berkley Prime Crime, 2004). The time of World War Two has always resonated with me – I can’t think of another period of history that has been fraught with such bitter conflict, such a clear demarcation between good and evil, or so many examples of heroism and cowardice. I still return there for inspiration. This story plumbs Berlin’s cabaret culture of the early ‘30s: the desperate need to party, the hollowness of the frivolity, the sense of impending doom. To that end the story also pays homage to Christopher Isherwood, whose work captured that atmosphere perfectly.

To read Libby Fischer Hellmann is to love Libby Fischer Hellmann. Her writing is tight, fast, and highly entertaining. But I had no idea Libby was so versatile. The collection of stories—all previously published—offer a wide variety of styles, tones, and topics. Funny. Dark. Poignant. Exciting. Surprising. Hardboiled. And, of course, Noir.