A SHOT TO DIE FOR
An Ellie Foreman Mystery
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
“Libby Fischer Hellmann has already joined an elite club: Chicago mystery writers who not only inhabit the environment but also give it a unique flavor... her series continues in fine style... (Ellie)... lights up the page with courage and energy." —Chicago Tribune
“This Libby Fischer Hellmann book is the best one yet… By every possible measure, Hellmann's status as a storyteller has grown. Plot development is masterful… intriguing, realistic characters… has me itching for the next book.” —Midwest Book Review
“A vivid setting… entertaining and effective…” —Publishers Weekly
"Hellmann reaches next level with latest mystery novel…" —Chicago Sun-Times
“Ellie is a very empathetic heroine… intelligently and realistically solved… a very enjoyable read!” —Deadly Pleasures
In this fourth title in the Ellie Foreman mystery series, the Chicago documentary filmmaker finds herself in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Returning from a video shoot at the Lodge, a newly renovated, upscale resort, Ellie befriends a woman who claims her ride abandoned her at a highway rest stop. But Ellie’s kindness is brutally cut short when a pickup truck pulls up, the rear window opens, and the woman is shot dead.
Even with her history of sleuthing, Ellie is not eager to get involved. Then the victims’s family arrives and begs for information. When the second shooting occurs, Ellie decides to poke around on her own. She is soon drawn into the history of a wealthy and prominent family, deeply rooted in a magnificent mansion on the shores of the lake, and surrounded by an elaborate web of lies, murder, and family secrets that have plagued both them and the town for years—secrets that now place Ellie in the crosshairs of a killer.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Incest and murder, plus the power and attraction of wealth, provide the menacing and murky background for Hellmann's less than compelling fourth novel to feature Ellie Foreman (after 2004's An Image of Death). The Chicago documentary filmmaker has a way of stumbling into murder and romance, and then coping with their competing demands in entertaining and effective fashion. Ellie's at a rest stop near Lake Geneva, Wis., when an apparently random shooting snuffs out Daria Flynn, a young woman with whom she'd just been talking. But the shooting turns out to have deep roots that lead back to Lake Geneva and the resort where Ellie had been filming. When Daria's family approaches Ellie to learn about her last moments, Ellie is drawn into the resort's dark history. She also meets handsome, rich, arrogant Luke Sutton, scion of the influential Sutton family and, because of a rumored link to Daria, a possible suspect. As usual, Hellmann creates a vivid setting, but Ellie's dithering over one fading relationship-and a bad case of raging hormones more appropriate for her 16-year-old daughter-reduce her appeal.
