Uneasy Lies

Dick Adler had his say about Libby Fischer Hellmann’s new novel, Easy Innocence. Now it’s critic Jim Winter’s turn.

Writing today in January Magazine, Winter applauds the “complex web of deceit and treachery” that Hellmann builds in this story about the slaying of teenager Sara Long. He extols the author’s willingness to allow her protagonist, Chicago police detective turned private eye Georgia Davis, to suffer for her mistakes. And though the critic questions the involvement in these pages of Davis’ ex-boyfriend, “cop turned foreign agent” Matt Singer, he seems very fond of the way Hellmann allows Georgia Davis to share the spotlight with one of Sara’s classmates, “a teenager with a disturbing secret to hide, [who] evolves into a girl trapped by her own ambition.” Concludes Winter: “Easy Innocence is more Ross Macdonald than Robert B. Parker, something long overdue in modern P.I. fiction.”

You can read his full review here.