EASY INNOCENCE
By Libby Fischer Hellmann

Library Journal (starred review):

The award-winning author of the Ellie Foreman series (An Image of Death) here introduces Chicago cop-turned-PI Georgia Davis. A female high school student is found bludgeoned to death in a wooded area where a notorious hazing incident once took place. While many in the affluent suburb of North Shore are quick to suspect the mentally ill man found at the scene, the victim's sister isn't convinced and hires Georgia to look into the incident. Hellmann brings to life the reality of hazing and bullying among teenage girls in a story with enough twists and turns to keep you reading to the end. Highly recommended.

Chicago Tribune:

There's a new no-nonsense female private detective in town: Georgia Davis, a former cop who is tough and smart enough to give even the legendary V.I. Warshawski a run for her money. And Warshawski creator Sara Paretsky provides Libby Fischer Hellmann, her colleague from the blog The Outfit, with a gracious nod in the jacket copy for Hellmann's new book, "Easy Innocence."

Hellmann, who put together "Chicago Blues," a wonderfully evocative anthology of mystery stories, also writes a series about video producer and single mother Ellie Foreman (who we learn was involved in the case that led to Davis' suspension). Davis is something else again: deeply moral in the best way, grittier, more noir, a throwback to the best of Dashiell Hammett, with a touch of modern writers like Barbara D'Amato and Michael Allen Dymmoch to keep things up to date.

Hellmann knows how to distill the essence of a character in a few unadorned but dead-right sentences. "If anything was wrong with him, his wife Joyce, a strong plain-speaking woman with so much energy she could power the lights at Wrigley Field by herself, would be all over him with a list of remedies she'd discovered on the Internet," she says of a former police mentor who gets Davis her first decent private case.

A beautiful, smart junior at Newfield School in Winnetka ("considered one of the most prestigious public schools in the country, but it was a place that mirrored both the best and the worst of teenage life") is murdered in a park. She is involved in a nasty hazing incident by a group of senior girls who cover her head with a bucket filled with fish guts and leave her. A mentally troubled man sees the incident and hears her cries for help, but before he can get to her someone else beats her to death with a baseball bat. The police find the man, a registered sex offender, nearby with the bat in his hand and the girl's blood on his shirt.

But some people—the man's caregiver sister, Davis' police friend and soon Davis herself, hired by the sister—doubt his guilt. Nagging questions arise: Why did police not mention the hazing incident until they were forced to acknowledge it? What pressure was brought from above to steamroll the case to trial? Could it have something to do with the fact that one of the girls involved is the daughter of the ambitious new state's attorney?

In the end, after more blood has been spilled and a chain of lies has been broken, a friend of Davis' asks:

" 'This life of yours. How can you do it day after day? Doesn't it get to you? Don't you ever want to be—normal?' "

Davis answers:

" 'Who says I'm not "normal," whatever that is?' "

All our detectives should be so normal. And all of them should have Hellmann on hand to get the message out.

Booklist:

In this fast-paced mystery, the author of the Ellie Forman series introduces suspended cop and now PI Georgia Davis. Georgia is hired to help clear a mentally ill man, Cam Jordan, who is accused of killing a teenage girl, Sara Long, in a local forest preserve. It looks like an open-and-shut case; Cams fingerprints are on the murder weapon, and the victims blood is on his shirt. However, Georgia and Cams lawyer suspect Cam is being railroaded. Through her investigation, Georgia finds Sara was killed at a high-school
hazing, and a local teenage prostitution ring is operating on the North Shore, a privileged, upper-class area north of Chicago. Also, there is a shady real-estate deal going on. Even when Georgia finds enough evidence to cast doubt on Cams culpability, she continues her investigation, intent on finding out who killed Sara and why. Georgia is a loner with a minimalist lifestyle who is recovering from her breakup with her boyfriend. She is a
principled, compassionate character, determined to do the right thing, even if it doesnt follow conventional assumptions.

Kirkus Reviews:

Private eye Georgia Davis battles on behalf of a mentally challenged man charged with murder.

After being suspended from the force and dumped by a fellow cop, Georgia Davis, setting up as a PI, is delighted to catch a case that may give her a chance to help an innocent man when Cam Jordan’s sister hires Georgia to prove her brother, a registered sex offender, innocent of brutally killing private-school teen Sara Long in a forest preserve. The police and DA are baying at Cam’s heels, but an old police pal who warns Georgia of the pressure to close the case also alerts her to a group of girls who were hazing Sara at the time of her death. The maverick streak that got Georgia suspended is just what’s needed in a mystery with some surprising ramifications. The DA’s daughter, who was also in the woods, had a grudge against Sara for dating her boyfriend. And Sara had a lot of expensive clothes neither she or her parents could have afforded. A second death scares Sara’s best friend Lauren into confiding that Sara was hooking and Lauren was running a high-school prostitution ring from her home computer. Georgia has several brushes with death before she can close the complicated case.

Depth of characterization sets this new entry by Hellmann (A Shot to Die For, 2005, etc.) apart from a crowded field.

Stuart M. Kaminsky, Grand Master, Mystery Writers of America:

Libby Hellmann can get into the mind of a character, whether the character is a mentally ill man or a teenage girl. I kept reading after the first brutal and fascinating pages because I... wanted to know what would happen to the good, the bad, the beautiful and the ugly people. PI Georgia Davis, the no-nonsense heart of this tale, is an original who cuts through the surface of the wealthy Chicago suburban North Shore and finds a darkness I didn't see coming. This is good stuff, very good stuff.

Sara Paretsky, author of the V.I. Warshawski series and Bleeding Kansas:

Hellmann's done her homework here and it shows: the writing is assured, the voices authentic, and the understanding both of criminal investigations and relationships among cops, lawyers and prosecutors come to life with great urgency. Her PI, Georgia Davis, works the affluent suburbs north of Chicago, fertile territory for crime that's lain fallow far too long. Davis' arrival on the mean streets is long overdue.

SJ Rozan, author of In This Rain:

Easy Innocence grabs you and doesn't let go. Hellmann's cool style and sleight-of-hand plotting draw you in deep before you know what's happened. This one will keep you up at night.

Midwest Book Review:

Exciting plot development and a strong heroine... If you enjoy gritty noir mysteries, this one is highly recommended.