Wednesday, January 6, 2016

Cover Reveal, Book Blast & $50 Gift Card Giveaway ~ JUMP CUT by Libby Fischer Hellmann


Jump Cut (The Ellie Foreman Mystery, #5)
by: Libby Fischer Hellmann
Series: Ellie Foreman Mysteries
Genre: Mystery
Release Date: February 29, 2016
Publisher: The Red Herrings Press


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.


The sun winked off the frozen surface of Lake Michigan the next morning as I drove south to McCormick Place. During one of the most brutal Chicago winters in decades, the smudge of purple clouds tinged with pink and gold hinted that the fury of winter might—just might—have peaked. I parked in the overpriced lot, bought half a dozen cups of overpriced coffee, and carried them into the massive exhibit hall.

The crew was setting up lights and shades, and Mac was behind the camera framing shots. MacArthur J. Kendall III owns a production studio in Northbrook. He started out shooting sweet sixteens, bar mitzvahs, and weddings, but parlayed that into corporate videos. We’ve worked together for nearly twenty years, from the days of two-inch video, to one-inch, three-quarter, and now digital.

Mac’s name, salt-and-pepper hair, button-down shirts, and penny loafers scream WASP, but the nasty scar running down his left cheek saves him from total Episcopalian infamy. He tells people he was attacked by a Mexican drug lord and made me swear never to reveal it was from a car accident.

I went up to him. “What do you need me to do?”

“You have the shot list?”

I nodded and pulled it out of the canvas bag that doubles as my purse. We went over it. He gestured to the main area of the Delcroft booth, which featured a large projection screen with the company logo on both sides, and about twenty chairs arranged theater-style.

“What time’s the first presentation?”

Teresa Basso Gold, our client contact, had told us to be prepared for a series of short remarks by Delcroft executives touting the company’s latest innovations.

I checked my watch. Barely six thirty. “The doors don’t open until nine, and Teresa said not to expect anyone until ten. But you can get some establishing shots, if you want.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Mac said and strolled over to confer with the crew.

Purchase Jump Cut from:


The Ellie Foreman Mystery Series:
(Click on the book covers for more information and/or to purchase from Amazon.)

Libby Fischer Hellmann is an author of Compulsively Readable Thrillers.  She 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” Set the Night on Fire, A Bitter Veil and Havana Lost. 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.

Places to find Libby Fischer Hellmann:

You can check out all the blogs participating in Libby’s Jump Cut Book Blast & Cover Reveal here.

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18 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Hi Janine,

      The blurb definitely gets your attention. Thanks for stopping by. Good luck in the giveaway.

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  2. The book looks great! Thanks for a chance to win!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for stopping by and checking out Jump Cut, Gabrielle.

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  3. Thanks so much for hosting Jump Cut! You can read a lengthier excerpt here: http://libbyhellmann.com/my-books/jump-cut. Happy to answer questions, btw..

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Libby.

      Thank you so much for stopping by. Congratulations on the upcoming release.

      Delete
  4. The book sounds so exciting and like something that would keep me interested and on edge until the very end!

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    Replies
    1. Hi Michele.

      I agree. I want to know what's on the flash drive and what's truly happening.

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  5. How do you come up with your plots and characters?

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  6. Here's a comment from Libby I took from another site.

    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.

    ReplyDelete
  7. This one looks great--thanks for the chance to win!

    -Amber Terry-

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  8. Plots are everywhere... in the news, in my own experiences, in history (I write historical thrillers too). What I love to do is put on ordinary person in extraordinary situations and see what they'll do. Some surprise me by becoming heroes... others are cowards. And that brings me to characters. I always like to go against the stereotype. So you'll often meet someon you really like in my stories and find out they're rotten to the core. Or you'll find a quiet shy person who turns out to be the courageous one. Hope that helps!

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  9. Will I be better off starting at the beginning with An Eye For Murder or will I be just fin starting with Jump Cut and going backwards? Thank you.

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  10. This book has a super exciting plot. It really has a contemporary feel to it and touches upon some of the possible problems of progress.

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