Award winning author, Shelly Frome is a member of Mystery Writers of America, a professor of dramatic arts emeritus at the University of Connecticut, a former professional actor, a writer of crime novels, cozy mystery novels, and books on theater and film.

He is also a features writer for Gannett Media’s Black Mountain News. His fiction includes Sun Dance for Andy Horn, Lilac Moon, Twilight of the Drifter, Tinseltown Riff,  Murder Run, Moon Games and The Secluded Village Murders.

Among his works of non-fiction are The Actors Studio and texts on the art and craft of screenwriting and writing for the stage. Miranda and the D-Day Caper was his last foray into the world of crime and the amateur sleuth, until now. He lives in Black Mountain, North Carolina.

Bee: Welcome to BookPleasures.com Shelly.  Thank you for taking part in this interview.

Shelly: Happy to be here.

Bee: Can you tell us about the process of choosing/designing the book cover?

Shelly: I asked for the dark shadow of a gypsy dagger on a maroon background in order to give viewers a clear and intriguing impression of a crime thriller. 

Bee: I always enjoy looking at the names that authors choose to give their characters. Where do you derive the names of your characters?  Are they based on real people you knew or now know in real life? How do you create names for your characters?

Shelly: As a former actor who, in a sense, plays all the characters, I seek out names that sound and feel right emotionally.

For instance, the name Zharko (taken from a list of popular east- European names) gives me a sense of jaded menace with roots in some old, gypsy stamping grounds. Zharko is foreign, other, and continually volatile.   

Bee: What comes first, characters or plot development?

Shelly: What comes first is a haunting or provocative quest, often a search for something I lost or never had. Then there’s the setting which delimits the world where this undertaking takes place.

Next comes a lead character who is set in motion because his or her life has been disrupted in some provocative way.

And on it goes like feeding grain into a hammer mill until (in the words of Tennessee Williams) it catches fire and becomes almost self-generating. 

Bee: What is your favorite scene in the book? Why?

Shelly: Perhaps the scene between Josh and his estranged mother could be considered a favorite because it reaches way down deep into a past that has never been talked about or revealed--a lair of hidden family secrets that hooks into the narrative and sends it spinning off.

Bee: Which actor would you like to see playing Josh and Zharko from Shadow of the Gypsy? 

Shelly: Perhaps a younger Tom Hanks could play Josh and, if it were somehow possible, someone with the raspy, calculating and maniacal qualities of George C. Scott would be perfect for Zharko.  

Bee: What draws you to the Crime Thriller Genre?

Shelly: This was my first. The circumstances seemed to fall into a kind of noir web as Josh finds himself trapped in a downward spiral as the stakes kept getting higher.

The more problematic the circumstances the more involved and surprised I became. And, as someone once said, no surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.  

Bee: What words do you use over and over that drive your editor crazy?

Shelly: Just. “He just didn’t know what recourse he had, something he hadn’t already tried. If he just had a friend who was familiar about such things, someone he could confide in.”

Shelly: Daydream, take my dog Baxter for a ride and/or a walk, socialize with a few close friends.  

Bee: What are you currently working on?

Shelly: The working title is Fast Times/Big City. I seem to have some creative need to revisit those heady days when Marilyn Monroe left Hollywood for New York to finally learn how to act and I left sleepy Miami to try my hand up in the Big Apple as well.

Only this time my lead character is older and wiser than I was and unwittingly gets involved with the mob along with the Bohemian lifestyle and rhythms of Greenwich Village he never knew existed.

Experiences he doubtless will never forget. Call it a second chance to confront and appreciate the realities and pitfalls that were beyond me.   

Bee: Thanks again and good luck with Shadow of the Gypsy!

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