Customer Reviews

Set the Night on Fire

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Lila Hilliard went out to get replacement Christmas lights for the Christmas tree. When she returned home she found her father's house ablaze, her father and twin brother dead and her life turned upside down. Why was the mysterious motorcycle rider trying to kill her? And did she have a savior or a second assassin after her?

Libby Fischer Hellmann has done it again. SET THE NIGHT ON FIRE is a compelling story of old friends, old causes, old secrets. Told in two voices, today's and yesterday's, this thriller will keep you turning the page until all is revealed.

One of the most interesting things I found here is Ms Hellmann's writing style changed between the present day story and the back story. At first it bothered me, but the more I thought about it, the more brilliant it became.

If you're under 45 you will enjoy learning about the attitudes of the country in the late 60's. If you're older you will find yourself nostalgic for your younger passions.

Wow! What a great read.

Libby Fischer Hellmann's Set the Night on Fire is an interesting thriller and historical look back to the Summer of Rage in 1960s Chicago. Very authentic feel and trip down memory lane to the music of the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, the Doors and the anti-Vietnam war protests. I knew some of these characters in my university days(though none that set off any bombs).

I highly recommend this book to anyone, but it will be especially meaningful to Baby Boomers.

James A Anderson, Author

DEADLINE

Seldom has a novel left me with such a set of conflicted impressions as has Libby Fischer Hellmann's first stand-alone novel, Set the Night on Fire. One part of me loves the book as a solidly written thriller, another part cringes at how accurately Hellmann pegged the absurdity of the 1960s revolutionaries, and a final part of me just cannot take the book's two main villains seriously. The first two points are so solidly in Hellmann's favor, however, that I can easily get past my villain problem.

Lila Hilliard is on the run. Her father and brother have just died in a mysterious house fire and now someone is trying to kill her. Her problem is that she has no idea who is chasing her, or why. What she does know is that she is still alive only because her would-be assassin is not very good at his job - so far - and that she seems to have acquired a human guardian angel somewhere along the way. And when that guardian angel steps forward to identify himself, Lila learns things about herself and her father that turn her life upside down.

She learns that her parents, along with a few thousand other college students and college drop-outs, came to Chicago in 1968 to protest the Viet Nam War at the Democratic National Convention being held there. Unfortunately for Lila, her parents became involved with a small group of domestic terrorists willing to use bombs to make their point. Innocent people were killed, arrests were made, and people went to prison - her father, among them. Now someone wants to kill anyone even remotely connected to that group of friends, including, apparently, their children. This is good thriller material and Hellmann develops it well.

More than a third of the book is told in flashback to the years between 1968 and 1970. This is the portion of the book in which Hellmann develops her characters and introduces political and personal conflicts between them that will have major repercussions in the present. To Hellmann's credit, this is also the portion of Set the Night on Fire that I found most difficult to read. Her portrayal of the radicals is so accurate that it reminded me of everything I hated about the sixties, especially the naïve pretentiousness of empty-headed terrorists willing to bomb private property at the risk of innocent lives in order to make some political point they only half understood. Sadly, just as in real life, some of the people in Hellmann's novel still live in Chicago where they are corrupting yet another generation of young people. That Hellmann could make me feel the same level of contempt for these people that I felt in the sixties and seventies is, indeed, a credit to her writing skills.

Set the Night on Fire is a nice blend of thriller with historical fiction, one that should be of interest to those that have been around long enough to have experienced the sixties for themselves and to those who only remember hearing their parents speak of those days.

Rated at: 4.0

It's difficult to classify Libby Fischer Hellmann's SET THE NIGHT ON FIRE, except that it's a marvelous read. It's part historical (the entire middle section takes place in the late Sixties in Chicago). It's also a love story in the Romeo and Juliet vain. But most of all it's a thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Other reviewers have summarized the plot; I'll just add that it has been nominated for an award. ForeWord Review Magazine has made it a finalist for their 2010 Book of the Year award in the suspense-thriller category. I hope it wins!.

I'd actually give this book a 4 1/2 if it were possible.

This was a great read. For me, a real page turner. I admit I might be inclined towards it since about a third of the book was dedicated to a fictional group of people who share my biography; in the summer of '68, I was 18 and in Chicago, and I was between my freshman and sophomore years in college, though I didn't drop out of school. And so far as I know, none of my friends pondered violence to make their (our) point. Though we certainly had a point of view.

As much as I enjoyed the historical link, I actually was more interested in the story of the present. Lila, a strong, smart and competent woman, a person of the *next generation, who has suffered the unfathomable loss of her family, realizes someone is out to get her, but hasn't a clue who it might be or why it might be. And it becomes apparent she has some kind of guardian angel....

I'm sure it did help a bit, that the author referenced a number of places I've known. But I honestly think I would have enjoyed it as much had it been set in San Francisco. Or New York. Or Boston, or Philadelphia. But of course, it was the summer of '68, so it wouldn't have been set anywhere other than Chicago.

Truly a well crafted novel, and I enjoyed my weekend of reading. Thank you, Ms. Hellman.

'Set The Night On Fire' tells the story of Dar Gantner, a 1960s radical now released from a forty year prison sentence for bombing a department store in which three people died. Someone with something to hide is killing the people Dar was close to back then and threatening their descendents. The key to the mystery lies back in the events in Chicago all those years ago that led to the department store bombing.

Libby Fischer Hellmann crafts a believable recreation of 'sixties Chicago, of the radical hopes and challenges and the self-deceptions that marked the time and this is the real strength of the book. You see in a character like Billy, an orphan adopted by the group, a symbol of the characteristic American dilemma of innocence betrayed.

But overall, this is not a 'heavy' book. It's a thriller informed with real substance and a highly recommended read.

I was a bit hesitant to read Libby Hellmann's SET THE NIGHT ON FIRE. I did not grow up during the Sixties, and I didn't share the political opinions that a lot of hippies and activists of that time did. I shouldn't have worried. It doesn't matter what your politics are, or if you even have any. SET THE NIGHT ON FIRE succeeds on a pure literary thriller level. It is a compelling story about a young woman who finds out someone is stalking her but she doesn't know why. As she puts the pieces together, she finds out that her parents' past still has an influence on the present. Once I started reading, I couldn't put it down - it is that good. I dare you to stop once you start.

Every now and then I come across a book that catches me so off guard that there are no words to describe it properly. That's how I felt about Set The Night On Fire. It's a touching story with so much heart that you almost forget that it's a work of fiction. I highly recommend this book to mystery and thriller fans.

After enjoying Ms. Hellman's previous novels starring Ellie Foreman and/or Georgia Davis I was intrigued by the positive chatter I read touting her new stand-alone novel, "Set The Night On Fire". I am happy to say that this novel is every bit as good, if not better, than her previous work, imho. Lila Hilliard comes home for the holidays to visit her well-to-do father, and her twin brother, in an affluent North Shore neighborhood, expecting family tensions as the down side of her visit. Her world quickly turns upside-down and inside-out as she is sucked into a maelstrom of violence and terror resulting from the present-day resolution of relationships and events born in the anti-war atmosphere of 1968-era Chicago. Lila encounters, and fights to survive, a decades-dormant tempest that envelops her in its re-emergence, and reveals a surprising story about her real past. This book hooked my interest in the opening chapters, and reeled me in through the clever plot and well-formed characters. A winner, in my book!!!

Libby Hellmann has an amazing knack for wedding timely issues with rich history to make her characters and plot jump off the page. She has, again, created an amazing page-turner that won't let you put it down! Her research is impeccable and she adds so much depth to her books by really setting her stage perfectly. I loved this book, and particularly the in depth look into my own old neighborhood in Chicago! I would recommend this book (and so far, everyone I have recommended it to has loved it, too!). It makes a wonderful holiday gift and particularly if you have an interest in Chicago or the 1960's, you will love it, but even if you don't have those interests, it is just a great, solid mystery with really well-developed characters and plot. As always, Libby writes about what she knows and you can tell! I can't wait for her next mystery to come out!