Set the Night on Fire

Someone is trying to kill Lila Hilliard. During the Christmas holidays she returns from running errands to find her family home in flames, her father and brother trapped inside. Later, she is attacked by a mysterious man on a motorcycle. . . and the threats don't end there. As Lila desperately tries to piece together who is after her and why, she uncovers information about her father's past in Chicago during the volatile days of the late 1960s . . . information he never shared with her, but now threatens to destroy her. Part thriller, part historical novel, and part love story, Set the Night on Fire paints an unforgettable portrait of Chicago during a turbulent time: the riots at the Democratic Convention . . . the struggle for power between the Black Panthers and SDS . . . and a group of young idealists who tried to change the world.                                                                                                                     NEW: Set The Night On Fire is available for a Kindlegraph!                    Also NEW is the Libby Hellmann App! Download it free at bit.ly/PuQH7H.From BooklistDecades-old student protests come back to haunt young people who shared an apartment in Chicago in the late 1960s. Dar Gantner has just been released from prison after 40 years for participating in the 1970 bombing of a Chicago department store in which three people died—among them his lover, Alix Kerr, daughter of the store owner. Now it seems his four remaining former housemates are in peril. When two of them, including Casey Hilliard, die in staged accidents within weeks, Dar suspects Ted Markham, who took part in the bombing but wasn’t charged and is now a U.S. senator running for the presidency. When atttempts are made on the life of Casey’s daughter and remaining heir, Lila, Dar has a compelling reason to protect her. Long-held secrets are revealed, as characters scramble for their lives. But what seems all too obvious to readers about the source of danger doesn’t occur to the characters until the eleventh hour. Hellmann, author of the Ellie Foreman and Georgia Davis mystery series, provides a colorful view of youthful antiestablishment activity in the 1960s, but her first stand-alone comes up short on suspense. --Michele Leber Review"A tremendous book - sweeping but intimate, elegiac but urgent, subtle but intense.  This story really does set the night on fire." --Lee Child"A brilliantly-paced thriller, transitioning seamlessly from modern-day Chicago to the late '60s. First-rate characterization...Best to start early in the day, as it is easy to stay up all night reading it." --Foreword MagazineRT Top Pick for December: "Electric... a marvelous novel." --RT Book Reviews"A top-rate thriller that taps into the antiwar protests of the 1960s... A jazzy fusion of past and present, Hellman's insightful, politically charged whodunit explores a fascinating period in American history."--Publishers Weekly"Set the Night on Fire is a compelling story of love, truth and redemption. This will be a break-out novel for this talented writer. Highly recommended." --Sheldon Siegel, New York Times best-selling author of Perfect Alibi