"Entertaining cerebral thriller"
Film and TV producer Ellie Foreman lives in a suburb of
Chicago. She has gained local fame for her "Celebrate
Chicago" televised show. When senior citizen Ben Sinclair
dies of an apparent heart attack, his landlady Ruth goes
through his things and comes across Ellie's name. The
landlady gets in touch with Ellie whose curiosity takes her
to Ruth's house to see if she ever met the deceased. She comes away with his zippo lighter and the positive
feeling of knowing she never met the man. When she
shows the lighter to her father he recognizes it as
belonging to a man he once knew as Ben Skulnick, who fought
in the Resistance, but later was sent to prison for
murder. Very shortly after that Ben's landlady dies
supposedly of natural causes. A string of murders and
attempted murder follow with every victim connected to Ben
Sinclair leading Ellie to wander if his death was really
natural causes. As she connects the dots to the puzzle,
she puts her own life in danger. Libby Fischer Hellmann's debut novel is a very entertaining
cerebral thriller. The story line is plausible as the
characters and their motives are considerably realistic
while the link between Nazi war crimes and a present day
politician running for office seems plausible too. AN EYE
FOR MURDER will not be this author's sole published mystery
as fans will encourage Ms. Hellmann to publish more tales
starring a delightful TV producer turned amateur sleuth. Harriet Klausner
Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted October 10, 2002
SummaryIt begins in 1944 Prague, but the madness—and the
murder—move on to contemporary Chicago where an old man
has died. Then it goes to the North Shore suburbs where
documentary filmmaker Ellie Foreman gets a letter prompted
by the success of her show Celebrate Chicago. The landlady
of the dead Ben Sinclair has found Ellie's name among his
effects. Why? Mrs. Fleischman is uneasy, and wants to know,
moreover, if Ben could have been murdered. Ellie became a
filmmaker to help people tell their stories. The books and
wartime relics Ben left behind—will they be enough to
tell his?
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