Libby Fischer Hellmann is venturing into new territory with her latest, Set The Night On Fire. It’s her first stand alone thriller after helming two series, (the Ellie Foreman books begin with An Eye For Murder and the latest Georgia Davis title is Doubleback), and a two-volume collection of short stories, Nice Girl Does Noir. It’s also part historical novel going back to secrets buried in 1968 amidst political upheaval and social unrest.

Forty years later former young radical Dar Gantner is being released from prison and slowly reinserting himself into what’s left of the circle of friends he used to have. Times have changed and so have they. It’s awkward, embarrassing and a little painful to see him again, to have that reminder of who they used to be and could have or might have become if things hadn’t gone the way they had. He was one of them once. They were like him too.

Meanwhile things aren’t going so great for Lila Hilliard who is too young to remember those days. That was her parent’s time, but she may be paying the price for it anyhow. She’s somebody’s target and she doesn’t know why.

Hellmann posted recently on The Outfit blog, (The Outfit being the collective of Chicago based crime writers including  Sean Chercover, Barbara D’Amato, David Ellis and Marcus Sakey that she belongs to), about her own memories of the late sixties:

"Sadness soon gave way to bitterness. The country was falling apart. Over the years some of our brightest lights had been snuffed out. Internationally our government seemed to be supporting the “bad guys.” And underlying it all was an unwinnable war that – perversely -- was escalating and risking the lives of my peers."

The complex and unresolved feelings she has about the time that saw Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King’s assassinations as well as the riots in Chicago and Viet Nam lurking in every shadow provide the fuel, but the engine this novel has under its hood is pure thriller. The story unfolds from different points of view and in then and now format. It’s an ambitious structure and I like to see authors swing for the fences and trust their audience to follow them.

On a side note: I did find one of the character's names - Philip Kerr - a little distracting as he shared it with an author that I tend to enjoy who had his own novel about the sixties, The Shot. Maybe that was unconscious, maybe complete coincidence or possibly even a nod, but I probably paid it far more attention than I should have.

What's your favorite novel about the sixties? Mine? Hmmm American Tabloid.

Jedidiah Ayres writes fiction and keeps the blog Hardboiled Wonderland.