A woman discovers her parents were not the people she thought they were. Who is she? And why is someone trying to kill her? Lila Hilliard returns home to Chicago for the holidays only to find someone is stalking her. Her father and brother are trapped in a fire, and she senses someone is following her. As she desperately tries to figure out who is after her and why, she uncovers information about her father’s past that ties him to the volatile movement of young activists during the late Sixties. Which means her parents were not the people she thought they were. Who were her parents? And why was the secret kept from her? The story then takes us back to the late Sixties in Chicago where 6 young people gathered during the Democratic Convention. Through their stories, the truth about Lila's family is gradually revealed, but the threat to Lila in the present still threatens her life. Part thriller, part historical novel, part love story, Set The Night on Fire , both personal and societal, tells an extraordinary tale about the stormy Chicago 1968 Democratic convention, SDS, the Black Panthers, and a group of idealists who were sure they would change the world. "A tremendous book - sweeping but intimate, elegiac but urgent, subtlebut intense. This story really does set the night on fire." --Lee Child "A brilliantly-paced thriller, transitioning seamlessly from modern-dayChicago to the late '60s. First-rate characterization...Best to startearly in the day, as it is easy to stay up all night reading it."--Foreword Magazine RT 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, politicallycharged 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 abreak-out novel for this talented writer. Highly recommended." --Sheldon Siegel, New York Times best-selling author of Perfect Alibi--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of thistitle.Read more TRUE CONFESSION:   I do remember the Sixties.   Especially 1968. That was the turning point in my political  "coming of age." I was in college in Philadelphia on April 4th when MartinLuther King was assassinated. I watched as riots consumed the innercities. I was saddened and disappointed -- as a teenager growing up inWashington DC, I'd gone to plenty of concerts at the Howard theaterwhere blacks and whites grooved to Motown artists together. I actuallythought we were moving towards a color-blind society -- I was young andidealistic then). So the frustration and rage expressed through theriots was - in a way- confusing.   Two months later Iunderstood. My college boyfriend had been tapped to head up the national "Youth for Bobby Kennedy" program. I was really excited; I planned ondropping out for a semester to work with him. For some reason I couldn't sleep the night of June 5th and turned on my radio. Bobby had been shot just after winning the California Democratic primary. He died the nextday. So much for the Youth for Kennedy campaign.   Sadness soongave way to bitterness. The country was falling apart. Over the yearssome of our brightest lights had been snuffed out. Internationally ourgovernment 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. I began to question why I shouldwork through the system, especially when the system wasn't working forus.   I wasn't alone. Plenty of others yearned for change.Fundamental change that would rebuild our society and culture. The nextfew years were tumultuous and volatile, but in the final analysis, wefailed. Maybe the task was impossible -- how many Utopias exist? Sure,there were cultural shifts. But political change, in the sense of whatto expect from our leaders and our government? Not so much. The era left me with unresolved feelings. What should we have done differently? Areall progressive movements doomed to fail?   At this point you're probably wondering what this has to do with writing a thriller. Andyou'd be right. It's never been my intention to write a politicalscreed. I am a storyteller whose stories, hopefully, you can't put down. I realized that if I was going to write about the Sixties, I needed apremise that would hook readers in the present, regardless of how muchthey know or remembered about the Sixties.   I found thatpremise in a film. Do you remember SIGNS, starring Mel Gibson? It cameout in 2002, and I thought the first half was the most riveting film I'd ever seen. Gibson's family is being stalked, but they don't know whoand they don't know why. The second half of the film, when we discoverit's just your garden variety aliens, was an enormous let down. Putting a face, an identity, on fear reduces it