Jump Cut: An Ellie Foreman Mystery

Hellman’s exceptional fifth Ellie Foreman mystery (after 2005’s A Shot to Die For) offers no easy solutions to the various security threats America faces today. Ellie, a video producer based in Chicago, is dismayed when the PR video she was working on for Delcroft is canceled by the aircraft company’s director of engineering. In an effort to understand what happened, Ellie slides into a deadly tangle of high-tech espionage and soon finds herself in possession of a murdered man’s encrypted flash drive, which is feverishly sought by everyone from Warren Stokes, Delcroft’s unscrupulous security chief, to a forlorn representative of the Uighurs, a persecuted Muslim minority in China. Though she hates the immorality all sides display, Ellie eventually just decides to give the drive to the least despicable player—until Stokes kidnaps her daughter and fits the girl with a suicide vest. As Hellman’s convincing, conflicted characters face impossible choices, the tension is real and memorable. (Mar.)