TOXICITY -- New e-book

by Libby Hellmann

Hi, everyone. It's a new month, and I have a new book out! It's a police procedural/thriller and it turned out to be the prequel to my Georgia Davis PI series.
Here's the description:

Ten years before EASY INNOCENCE, PI Georgia Davis was a police officer on the force in a Chicago suburb. And while homicides are rare on the North Shore, three bodies turn up in quick succession—all of them dumped in waste disposal dumpsters or landfills. The investigations into the murders test the mettle and professionalism of a combined police task force. Along the way, they also test the strength of Georgia’s relationship with one of the detectives working the case. While Georgia, her detective boyfriend Matt, and his sometime partner John Stone pit their skills against those of an ingenious killer, the daughter of a real estate mogul-- who just happens to have her eye on Matt -- complicates matters. A dark police procedural and thriller, TOXICITY is a prequel to the Georgia Davis PI series (EASY INNOCENCE and DOUBLEBACK).

It's only just gone up, but there is one review, a quote from which I have to share:

"Hellmann writes with the economy and emotional punch of classic crime novelists like Lawrence Block."

(Be still, my heart....)

Hope you'll give it a look. You can find it on Amazon, on Nook, on Smashwords, and soon, hopefully all the others.

Have a great holiday, everyone.

Reviews Wanted for e-Anthology

by Libby Hellmann

Hi, all. I've been very fortunate to hook up with a group of fabulous authors (in addition to those on The Outfit, of course), and we're e-publishing a new anthology April 1. We're looking for reviewers to help it launch it in style. Here's what we're saying:

Hold on tight for a literary thrill-ride into the wickedly clever, frightening, and exhilarating world of Top Suspense, a sizzling collaboration of twelve master storytellers at the peak of their powers in thirteen unforgettable tales. Max Allan Collins, Bill Crider, Stephen Gallagher, Lee Goldberg, Joel Goldman, Naomi Hirahara, Vicki Hendricks, Paul Levine, Harry Shannon, Dave Zeltserman, and yours truly.

This unforgettable anthology – packed full of cold-blooded killers, erotic tension, shady private eyes, craven drug dealers, vicious betrayals, crafty thieves, and shocking twists – is coming out on APRIL 1 and is only a taste of the thrills you will find in the breathtakingly original ebooks by these authors at www.topsuspensegroup.com.

But you can get a FREE ADVANCE READING COPY...in your e-format of choice.


Here’s all you have to do:

1. Send me an email through my website with the subject FREE TOP SUSPENSE BOOK and give me your name and the address of your website or blog (don’t have one? That’s okay. Read on).

2. Agree to post a review, positive or negative (but with no spoilers!) on your blog, website, Goodreads page, Facebook page, or the Amazon listing for TOP SUSPENSE in the next 60 days. (You don't have to buy the book on Amazon to review it there, you only need to have an account).

3. Email me a copy of the review or a link to the post.

Each Top Suspense author has been alotted just 25 copies to giveaway, so if you're interested, you'd better hurry. And once you get your book, sit back, bite down on a piece of strong leather, and prepare to get hit by some gale-force suspense and writing so sharp it will draw blood.


Hope to hear from you! Thanks.

A Writing Tip

by Barbara D'Amato


I was reading a novel, maybe the fifth or so in a series I really like, when I began to feel manipulated. After flipping back and forth in the book, I decided the problem was the structure. The chapters alternated like this:

Main character confronted by puzzle
Secondary character in danger
MC still puzzled
SC getting farther into danger
MC finds clue which produces more puzzles
SC – worse danger
MC -- puzzled

And so forth. It’s not that going back and forth between characters is a bad technique. It keeps things moving. The problem in this book was the metronomic regularity of the switch. The story needed a third element to appear a couple of times to keep the process from being predictable.

In another mystery novel, three chapters began with a dream. The kind of thing where you read into it thinking it’s real and then the dreamer wakes up, usually all stressed. These chapters were widely spaced in the book and not, I think, intended to be stylistically important. Nor were they an important characteristic of the man who was dreaming. They seemed to be a solution the author had found to the problem of getting into a new chapter. But it was overused.

We all get into habits. Something worked before? Use it again. That’s learning. But it’s also dangerous. We need to check out our habits and to do that we need to be aware of them.

The same with chapter endings. A lot of books I’ve read lately end every chapter on a note of high suspense.

“What’s that at the end of the corridor?”

“Do I smell—gasoline?”

“That can’t be John! John’s dead!”

Which is all very well. We are often told to make the end of each chapter a cliffhanger so that the reader is compelled to read on. Unfortunately, this technique becomes predictable, candy after every meal. There are a lot of ways to end a chapter. You can end a chapter in the middle of action, the middle of a conversation, the middle of a fight, the end of a fight, even on a temporary resolution, or a final resolution for a minor character. It doesn’t have to be a bated-breath suspense point. In fact, it probably shouldn’t be every time. If the book’s premise is strong, a breathing space at the end of a chapter can be refreshing.

There is a way to catch some of your habits. Lay out the first page of each of your chapters in order. Yes, you can scan through your manuscript on your word processor, but it really does make a difference when you see them lined up together physically. Look for unintentional similarities.

Do the same with the last pages of your chapters.

I’m betting any one of us will find habits we didn’t know we had.

You don’t want to be predictable.