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WORK TITLE: The Nutting Girl
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: https://freddevecca.com/
CITY: Shelburne Falls
STATE: MA
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
RESEARCHER NOTES: N/A
PERSONAL
Born in Philadelphia, PA.
EDUCATION:Wilkes University, B.A.; attended Maine Media Workshops & College, Rockport, ME.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Screenwriter, photographer and author. Producer, TV6 Greenfield Community TV, Greenfield, MA, 1996-98; manager, Pothole Pictures (community-run movie theater), 1999–.
MEMBER:Marlboro Morris Men.
AWARDS:Finalist, Austin Heart of Film Screenwriting Contest, 1997, and finalist, Massachusetts Film Office Screenwriting Competition, both for Apparition Falls; third prize, Microbudget Film Festival, 1998, for Hellhouse Moon.
WRITINGS
Also author of screenplays Apparition Falls and Hellhouse Moon. Contributor to periodicals and media outlets, including Baseball Underground, Berkshire Eagle, Boston Globe, Greenfield Recorder, Hampshire Gazette, Leisure Weekly, Noir Originals, Preview Massachusetts, Shelburne Falls & West County Independent, and Valley Advocate.
SIDELIGHTS
Fred DeVecca is a screenwriter and theater manager whose first novel, The Nutting Girl, is a private eye mystery set in his home town of Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts. “DeVecca said the initial inspiration for his book came when Hollywood crews descended on Shelburne Falls in 2012 and 2013 to film scenes from the movies Labor Day and The Judge, respectively,” said Steve Pfarrer in the Amherst Bulletin. “He covered those stories for the Independent, a local newspaper, and he sensed that the buzz generated by seeing stars like Kate Winslet and Robert Downey Jr. hanging out in town ‘could make for good fodder’ for a novel.” “‘I’ve always loved mysteries especially private eye stories,’ he said,” reported Cori Urban in a MassLive interview with the author. “‘There are a lot of tropes (overused plot devices) in private-eye stories — the PI being alcoholic, haunted by his past, getting involved in two separate jobs which end up being connected, having similar traits as the bad guy, being arrested for the crime he is investigating, bantering with police, etc. etc.'”
The private eye of DeVecca’s novel is Frank Raven. “Raven used to be a lot of things–a blind monk, a cop, a private detective, and a hard drinker,” explained a reviewer for Boston Literary District. At this point in his life, he manages an independent movie theater (much like DeVecca himself). He returns to private investigations when director Nick Mooney comes to Sherburne Falls to film a version of James Joyce’s Ulysses.
The Nutting Girl of the title is young, troubled actress Julianna Velvet Norcross. “Julianna — or Julie, her preferred nickname — is known to the tabloid-reading public as VelCro,” explained Tinky Weisblat in the Greenfield Recorder. “Unfortunately, as soon as Mooney and company arrive in town, Julie disappears. Frank finds her without too much trouble, and Mooney hires the former detective to keep an eye on the young star during the shooting of the film. Julie bonds with Frank, with Frank’s girlfriend Clara, and above all with Clara’s teenage daughter Sarah. All are devastated when the star tumbles into the raging Deerfield River on the first day of filming and disappears. Frank and Sarah become obsessed with figuring out what happened.” “Frank thinks of VelCro as the nutting girl,” wrote Susan Hoover in Reviewingtheevidence.com, “the name of a Morris Dance he and his crew were performing for the movie when VelCro went over the falls. Many scenes take place on the rocks above the falls.” In order to find out what really happened to VelCro, Frank must travel to New Orleans where, stated a Publishers Weekly reviewer, “his past catches up with him in a surprising way. Readers will enjoy the wild ride.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Amherst Bulletin, August 24, 2017, Steve Pfarrer, “Shelburne Falls Mysteries; Emily Arsenault and Fred DeVecca Pen New Books.”
Greenfield Recorder, July 26, 2017, Tinky Weisblat, review of The Nutting Girl.
Publishers Weekly, June 12, 2017, review of The Nutting Girl, p. 44.
ONLINE
Boston Literary District, http://bostonlitdistrict.org/ (September 25, 2017), review of The Nutting Girl.
Fred DeVecca Website, https://freddevecca.com (April 11, 2018), author profile.
MassLive, http://www.masslive.com/ (July 5, 2017), Cori Urban, “Fred DeVecca Writes Mystery Novel Set in Shelburne Falls.”
Reviewingtheevidence.com, http://www.reviewingtheevidence.com/ (July 1, 2017), Susan Hoover, review of The Nutting Girl.
Print Marked Items
The Nutting Girl
Publishers Weekly.
264.24 (June 12, 2017): p44.
COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
The Nutting Girl
Fred DeVecca. Coffeetown, $16.95 trade paper (320p) ISBN 978-1-60381-575-8
Frank Raven, the likable, eccentric narrator of DeVecca's intriguing if flawed first novel, used to be a cop, a
PI, and a monk. He currently lives in Shelburne Falls, Mass., where he runs the local movie theater and does
Morris dancing. Then film director Nick Mooney arrives in town and persuades Raven to go looking for
missing actress Juliana Velvet Norcross (aka VelCro), "the biggest star in the world," whom Raven has
barely heard of. After easily finding VelCro, Raven returns to his usual pursuits, until Mooney hires him to
watch VelCro. The action slows as Raven and VelCro engage in thoughtful, philosophical conversations, but
it picks up again when VelCro falls into the raging Deerfield River and disappears. In his search for VelCro,
Raven follows a tortuous trail of clues to New Orleans, where his past catches up with him in a surprising
way. Readers will enjoy the wild ride, but they should be prepared for unconvincing coincidences and a host
of plot contrivances. Agent: Janice Pieroni, Story Arts Management. (Aug.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"The Nutting Girl." Publishers Weekly, 12 June 2017, p. 44. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A495720664/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=dac2562e.
Accessed 27 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A495720664
THE NUTTING GIRL
by Fred DeVecca
Coffeetown Press, August 2017
296 pages
$16.95
ISBN: 1603815759
Buy from Amazon.com
Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada
When a movie crew arrives in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts on the Deerfield River, Frank Raven finds himself guarding the movie's star, Juliana Velvet Norcross, aka VelCro, a wild young flaming redhead. On the first day of filming, VelCro disappears over the falls, and soon, people are going over the falls in numbers that begin to concern the FBI.
Frank is a retired monk, cop, PI, though still a Morris Dancer (!) who has pretty much withdrawn from the larger world. He meets his match in Nick Mooney, the director of the film who has an obsession with tiny redheads whose names end in A. It becomes Frank's job to find VelCro, whose body has never surfaced.
Shelburne Falls, pop. 1700, and its fearsome falls, loom large in THE NUTTING GIRL, Frank thinks of VelCro as the nutting girl, the name of a Morris Dance he and his crew were performing for the movie when VelCro went over the falls. Many scenes take place on the rocks above the falls, others on the shores of the rocky river below the falls. When a second young redhead's body is found below the falls, the plot thickens.
Frank is a philosopher who has lost his faith, but is dogged by his disbelief. No wonder since he was blind and miraculously recovered his sight (or at least half of it) while in the monastery. Frank knows Shelburne Falls like the back of his hand, and is renowned for finding things, which he proceeds to do in the course of the novel.
On the other hand, Nick Mooney, described as bright-eyed, six feet seven and alarmingly skinny, begins to reveal himself as an evil demon. His bevy of redheads, his alcoholism and his nasty tongue are in danger of breaking Frank's refusal to engage in drinking and violence.
THE NUTTING GIRL is kind of small-town noir. The hero is a washed-out loser and the villain is evil. The town is lovely, like a temptress with a heart of stone, the perfect femme fatale.
The novel often tries our credibility, but then who says crime fiction must always be without flights of fancy? Morris Dancing, miracle cures in a monastery in New Orleans, dying and coming back to life? Really?
This is Fred DeVecca's first novel, but he should keep at it. He knows how to entertain, and he can build a plot so complicated that the reader will be left guessing right up to the end.
§ Susan Hoover is a playwright, independent producer and retired college English teacher. She lives in Nova Scotia.
Reviewed by Susan Hoover, July 2017
FRED DEVECCA Shares his Mystery Novel, The Nutting Girl
September 25, 2017 | 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm Free
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Trident Booksellers hosts longtime screenwriter, photographer, director, actor, and free-lance writer/author FRED DEVECCA for a reading of his novel The Nutting Girl.
Middle-aged Frank Raven used to be a lot of things–a blind monk, a cop, a private detective, and a hard drinker. Now he doesn’t do much except run a funky old movie theater in bucolic Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts, dance and sing with the local troupe of Morris Dancers, and record bird songs on his phone. A lanky young wunderkind director, Nick Mooney, brings his Hollywood film crew to town and hires the “retired” Raven to protect his star: the wild, unpredictable, gorgeous, and prodigiously talented twenty-one-year-old Juliana Velvet Norcross, aka VelCro. Reluctant at first, Raven takes on the job and slowly sees that there is more to VelCro than the troubled rebel she appears to be. On the eve of filming, storms ravage the small village, and the river that runs through the center of town floods its banks. The storm passes, VelCro recovers from illness that Raven’s girlfriend’s daughter, Sarah, helped nurse, and filming begins. But during the first shot, she is swept away into the river, leaving no trace.
This event is free and open to the public.
Fred DeVecca writes mystery novel set in Shelburne Falls
Updated July 5, 2017 at 5:05 AM; Posted July 5, 2017 at 5:00 AM
2017 -- Author Fred DeVecca of Shelburne Falls (Submitted photo)
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By Cori Urban
Special to The Republican
Frank Raven, a former monk, cop, private detective and hard drinker, is hired by a Hollywood director to protect his wild young star while they are making a movie in Shelburne Falls. After "Velcro" is swept away into the river leaving no trace, Raven is driven to find out what happened.
You, too, can find out what happened in this novel, "The Nutting Girl," by Fred DeVecca of Shelburne Falls.
Coffeetown Press will publish the novel on Aug. 1.
Two Hollywood films were filmed in Shelburne Falls in recent years, "Labor Day" in 2012 and "The Judge" in 2013. "These films were really big productions. Hundreds of people came into town from Hollywood -- all kinds of actors and technicians and equipment. They occupied the town for months and were a very big presence in such a small town, and they brought some very famous stars with them" including Robert Downey Jr., said DeVecca, a freelance writer, mostly in the arts and entertainment field.
"As a writer, all this seemed like it could be the fodder for some kind of a fun story: What if the most famous actor in the world came here to Shelburne Falls and disappeared? What if a local person became obsessed with finding that person?" DeVecca said. "The contrast between the fame and excitement of a big motion picture with the quiet, mundane small town seemed like it had very dramatic possibilities and the involvement of a local thrown into that foreign world intrigued me."
He enjoys reading books and seeing films that take place in places he recognizes. And he always thought Shelburne Falls, "with its cute, pretty exterior, but with a lot of complexity and depth," was a perfect place to set a mystery story.
"Plus, everyone says to write what you know, and I've lived here for almost 40 years so I feel like I know this area well, even though I was not born here."
He was born in Philadelphia and raised in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. He has a bachelor's degree in English Literature from Wilkes University and attended film school at Maine Media Workshops and College at Rockport, Maine.
"The Nutting Girl" - DeVecca's first published book -- was not in the works before the films arrived in town; the author began to seriously think about it just as "The Judge" crew left town.
"I've always loved mysteries especially private eye stories," he said. "There are a lot of tropes (overused plot devices) in private-eye stories -- the PI being alcoholic, haunted by his past, getting involved in two separate jobs which end up being connected, having similar traits as the bad guy, being arrested for the crime he is investigating, bantering with police, etc. etc."
But even though they are overused he likes them. "So I wanted the chance to use them all but try to use them in fresh ways, which is what I tried to do in 'The Nutting Girl.'"
Also, he has been some form of spiritual seeker all his life and has seldom, if ever, seen a PI novel that was expressly spiritual so he wanted to write one that included some spiritual elements.
DeVecca has been a member of the Marlboro Morris Men since the mid-'80s, and since 1999 he has managed Pothole Pictures, a non-profit, community-run movie theater in Shelburne Falls.
If anyone is wondering if local folks might be identifiable in the book, the author said no one should recognize himself or herself because he I did not base any characters on any specific person: "There are a few composites and a number of people I know well influenced the story in a more subtle way, but I did not use any real people as the model for any characters in the story."
"The Nutting Girl," in softcover, has 296 pages and retails for $16.95.
For more information, go to FredDeVecca.com or coffeetownpress.com.
Tinky’s Book Review: Fred DeVecca’s new mystery novel ‘The Nutting Girl’ set in Shelburne Falls
Fred DeVecca of Shelburne Falls has written the “Nutting Girl.” He stands in front of the potholes. Recorder Staff/Paul Franz » Buy this Image
Wednesday, July 26, 2017
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Fred DeVecca has a lot in common with the narrator of his brand-new mystery novel, “The Nutting Girl.”
DeVecca and Frank Raven both live in Shelburne Falls. Both love the language of James Joyce. Both enjoy Morris dancing and folk music. Both are well known figures in the village. Both run weekend movie programs in the center of town (in DeVecca’s case, Pothole Pictures).
Nevertheless, the two have distinct personalities. When I spoke with DeVecca last week, he shared a precept his first writing instructor, the late Genie Zeiger, taught him: “When you’re reading something and it’s written in the first person, never presume that the narrator is the author.”
Frank Raven is a man with a past — actually, several pasts. He is a former Franciscan monk, a former policeman, a former alcoholic, and a former private investigator. He prides himself on being good at finding things, particularly in the village of Shelburne Falls. He knows his home turf intimately.
Frank is drawn back into investigative work when a movie crew arrives in Shelburne Falls. Director Nick Mooney wants to make a film roughly based on Joyce’s modernist novel “Ulysses,” set in Shelburne Falls and starring a talented, troubled young actress named Julianna Velvet Norcross.
Julianna — or Julie, her preferred nickname — is known to the tabloid-reading public as VelCro.
Unfortunately, as soon as Mooney and company arrive in town, Julie disappears. Frank finds her without too much trouble, and Mooney hires the former detective to keep an eye on the young star during the shooting of the film.
Julie bonds with Frank, with Frank’s girlfriend Clara, and above all with Clara’s teenage daughter Sarah. All are devastated when the star tumbles into the raging Deerfield River on the first day of filming and disappears.
Frank and Sarah become obsessed with figuring out what happened to Julie. Did she fall, or was she pushed? Did she die, or is she alive somewhere? Their quest becomes even more urgent when another young actress disappears.
The book features Shelburne Falls landmarks, businesses, and activities, from the Bridge of Flowers to the Morris dancing that returns to the village’s streets each spring.
Frank’s Morris dancing troupe is roped into supplying local color for the film. The dancers are actually performing a well-known Morris tune called “The Nutting Girl” in front of McCusker’s Market when the young actress vanishes into the water.
I asked Fred DeVecca how the film’s plot came to him. As I suspected, he was inspired by the recent feature films shot in Shelburne Falls, “Labor Day” (2013) and “The Judge” (2014).
“It was very interesting to me to see how Hollywood could take over a small town. They came in with a million trucks,” DeVecca recalled. He admitted that as a long-time lover of film he was thrilled.
“I was covering [the film crews] for the ‘Independent,’” he explained. “I followed them around and wrote stories about it. I thought, ‘There’s got to be a cool story in there somewhere.
“What if a Hollywood company came into town and they had the world’s biggest star and she disappeared here in town … and they hired some local schmuck to protect her?’”
An event from one of the film shoots inspired the first meeting between director Nick Mooney and detective Frank Raven, DeVecca added. In the novel, Mooney shows that he knows all about Frank’s past and present during their initial conversation.
According to DeVecca, an individual from one of the film productions — he didn’t want to say who or which of the two films — approached the local writer and began talking.
“He seemed to know everything there was to know about me. He knew that I was a writer. He knew my history.”
The message from the film company was clear: “We have studied this town, and we know who everybody is.”
I inquired about the novel’s emphasis on elements that don’t appear in many mystery novels. Frank and the film crew — particularly Julie — share a love of song and dance. They also engage in discussions of spirituality, often as it is expressed in music.
“There’s something very bonding about connecting with music and song,” DeVecca said with passion. “I’ve been at many Morris events where there’s this harmony that literally shakes the room. It vibrates in a spiritual way.”
I asked DeVecca how long it took him to write the book. He explained that he spent two years on it, plus at least another year doing rewrites at the behest of his agent and publisher.
“The Nutting Girl” is his first published novel, although he has written extensive journalistic nonfiction and several screenplays over the years. Coincidentally, his screenwriting helped him find a publisher for this mystery.
A few years ago, one of his screenplays was listed as a finalist in a screenwriting competition in Boston. “One of the judges introduced herself to me,” he remembered. “At that point she was an entertainment attorney.”
The two became friends … and when the lawyer decided to switch careers and become a literary agent, she ended up representing “The Nutting Girl” and selling it to Coffeetown Press. The cover art by Peter Ruhf literally added more local color to the finished book.
I looked at the agent’s website, which emphasizes her interest in buying books that have the potential to be adapted as feature films. Perhaps one of these days the cameras will roll again in Shelburne Falls to shoot a big-screen version of “The Nutting Girl.”
Fred DeVecca will read from “The Nutting Girl,” and Boswell’s Books will sell copies of the book, on Tuesday, Aug. 2, beginning at 7 p.m. at Underdogs Lounge on Bridge Street in Shelburne Falls. DeVecca hinted that some of his Morris troupe may be on hand to perform a bit of the songthat gave the novel its title.
Tinky Weisblat of Hawley is the author of “The Pudding Hollow Cookbook” and “Pulling Taffy.” For more information about Tinky, visit her website, www.TinkyCooks.com.
Shelburne Falls mysteries; Emily Arsenault and Fred DeVecca pen new books
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Shelburne Falls writers, and friends, Emily Arsenault and Fred DeVecca on the Bridge of Flowers. GAZETTE STAFF / KEVIN GUTTING
Shelburne Falls writers Emily Arsenault, center, and Fred DeVecca talk with Nancy Eisenstein, proprietor of Boswell’s Books in Shelburne Falls. The two have each penned a new mystery, Arsenault with the young-adult title “The Leaf Reader” and DeVecca with the locally placed novel “The Nutting Girl.” GAZETTE STAFF / KEVIN GUTTING
GAZETTE STAFF / KEVIN GUTTING
Shelburne Falls writers (and friends) Fred DeVecca and Emily Arsenault, seen here on the Bridge of Flowers over the Deerfield River, have penned new mysteries, "The Nutting Girl" and "The Leaf Reader", respectively. —GAZETTE STAFF / KEVIN GUTTING
Shelburne Falls writers (and friends) Emily Arsenault and Fred DeVecca meet in Boswell's Books in Shelburne Falls on Monday, August 7, 2017. The two have penned new mysteries, Arsenault with the Young Adult fiction "The Leaf Reader" and DeVecca with the locally placed novel "The Nutting Girl". —GAZETTE STAFF / KEVIN GUTTING
Shelburne Falls writers (and friends) Emily Arsenault and Fred DeVecca have penned new mysteries, "The Leaf Reader" and "The Nutting Girl", respectively. —GAZETTE STAFF / KEVIN GUTTING
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By Steve Pfarrer
Staff Writer
Thursday, August 24, 2017
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Shelburne Falls Books writers mystery
Shelburne Falls, a perfect setting for a mystery? Or just a good place for writers to call home?
For Emily Arsenault and Fred DeVecca, it’s both.
The two friends, fellow writers and Shelburne Falls residents, have both published mysteries this summer that have won favorable reviews. For Arsenault, with five previous books to her credit, “The Leaf Reader” is her first published foray into young-adult (YA) fiction. And for DeVecca, a veteran freelance journalist and screenwriter, “The Nutting Girl” is his debut novel.
DeVecca, who met Arsenault in town about five years ago, asked his friend for her feedback on part of an early draft of “The Nutting Girl, which is set in Shelburne Falls. “She very graciously sat down with me and offered me some really good ideas,” said DeVecca.
Arsenault said she was happy to do it. “I read between 50 and 100 pages, and I thought, ‘Someone’s going to pick this up,’ and I’m thrilled how it’s worked it out for him.”
Arsenault, who wrote her first novel, “The Broken Teaglass,” in 2009, has yet to set any of her books in Shelburne Falls (though one takes place partly in Northampton in the 19th century). But she says she draws a lot of energy for her writing “from living in a place where people do a lot of creative things.”
‘The Leaf Reader’
Arsenault says her first stab at writing a book was a YA title, and though it was never published, she thought she might return to the genre one day.
With “The Leaf Reader,” as in her other titles, she wanted to take something she was interested in — in this case tea-leaf reading — and build a book around it (she includes a funny author’s note on her experience with making predictions based on such readings).
“I thought this might be a more plausible subject for a YA book than an adult novel,” she said.
The story is centered on Marnie Wells, a high-school junior who’s not part of the “in” crowd in her suburban Connecticut town. Marnie and her troubled older brother, Noah, have been raised by their eccentric grandmother (the siblings call her “G. Clara”) in a run-down house. Her grandmother also teaches home economics at the local high school, where she’s known for her foul mouth.
Marnie figures she might just as well let her freak flag fly (or “make my skeletons dance,” as she puts it) by taking up tea-leaf reading after she finds a book on the subject in her grandmother’s bookcase. Strangely enough, word soon gets out around school about her new hobby, and kids start requesting her to make predictions for them.
One of them is Matt Cotrell, a good-looking basketball star who wants to know if Marnie can tell her anything about Andrea Quinley, a fellow student and friend of Matt’s who disappeared from town months ago. Andrea is presumed dead — yet Matt has been receiving mysterious email messages from someone who appears to be her.
As the plot becomes more complicated, Marnie has to wonder if Matt, who appears to have some feelings for her, is just using her — and if her predictions, which seem to be pointing to some darker currents in town, such as drug use and the possible disappearance of another student, might mean she has some real foresight about the past and future.
Like Arsenault’s other mysteries, “The Leaf Reader” turns on dialogue, suspense and atmosphere rather than dramatic events or horror. “When my husband reads my manuscripts, he always says, ‘Why don’t you put some more action in it?’ ” she said with a laugh.
But the conversations in “The Leaf Reader” feel genuine, with all the posturing and insecurity that teens can show. The New York Times calls the book “skillfully constructed . . . Arsenault never pushes the supernatural angle too hard, letting Marnie, and the reader, skate on the suspenseful edge of skepticism and belief.”
If it resonates on a deeper level, it’s likely because there’s something of the author in the book; Arsenault, who’s 41 and grew up in Connecticut, says high school “is still so vivid to me. I keep going back to that, whether it’s teen characters or adults who have lingering adolescent issues.”
‘The Nutting Girl’
DeVecca said the initial inspiration for his book came when Hollywood crews descended on Shelburne Falls in 2012 and 2013 to film scenes from the movies “Labor Day” and “The Judge,” respectively. He covered those stories for The Independent, a local newspaper, and he sensed that the buzz generated by seeing stars like Kate Winslet and Robert Downey Jr. hanging out in town “could make for good fodder” for a novel.
He had some initial reservations, though, about actually setting the story in Shelburne Falls. “I mean, bad things happen in the book,” he said. “Some people die, and I didn’t want [residents] to think I was giving the town a bad name.”
But he got a vote of confidence from Archer Mayor, the Vermont mystery writer who has set his long-running series featuring police investigator Joe Gunther in and around Brattleboro, VT. Mayor, after a reading he gave in Shelburne Falls a few years back, told DeVecca he shouldn’t worry about using the real town as the setting for his book.
“He said ‘Bad things happen everywhere,’ ” said DeVecca.
“The Nutting Girl” has its share of darkness, but it’s also a portrait of a quirky town and its characters; well-known locales like The Bridge of Flowers, the Glacial Potholes and Mocha Maya’s café are part of the scene. The story is narrated by Frank Raven, a world-weary figure whose background includes stints as a monk, a private detective and (very briefly) a cop. He also used to have a drinking problem.
These days Frank, 55, keeps a low profile: He runs an old movie theater in town (think Pothole Pictures), records bird calls on his cell phone and dances and sings with a local troupe of male Morris Dancers, who perform a form of English folk dance.
But he’s coaxed out of retirement when a Hollywood film crew arrives in town; the star of the upcoming movie is a beautiful young woman, Julianna Velvet Norcross (she’s nicknamed “VelCro”), who is as wild and fragile as she is talented. The film’s slick director, Nick Mooney, hires Frank to protect Julianna while the crew’s in town.
He and Julianna strike up an odd friendship, based in part on Julianna’s questions about Frank’s spiritual views, which in turn brings Frank a bit out of his self-imposed shell. But when the young actress mysteriously falls ill, then vanishes into the Deerfield River during the film’s first day of shooting, Frank has many more questions to pursue, and the plot turns increasingly sinister.
DeVecca says he has long been a fan of mysteries and detective stories, but he conceived of Frank Raven (who has a bit of the author woven into him) as something of a spiritual, introspective character as much as a former private eye.
“There are times where he seems out of his depth,” he said. “He kind of stumbles onto things. That’s deliberate — I wanted this sense of a certain higher element kind of guiding things, showing him the way to go.”
In fact, DeVecca says his publisher, Coffeetown Press in Seattle, WA, originally planned to market “The Nutting Girl” as literary fiction. But when veteran Texas writer James Reasoner gave the book a favorable blurb — he calls it “one of the best private eye novels to come along in a long time” — the publisher quickly labeled it a mystery and asked DeVecca for a follow-up.
He’s at work on that now, with Frank Raven again confronting strange doings in Shelburne Falls. But if you live there and worry that you might end up in his books, rest assured, said DeVecca.
“That’s the question I get all the time, and the answer is almost 100 percent ‘no,’ ” he said with a laugh. “There are a few composite portraits, but this is fiction, pure and simple.”
Steve Pfarrer can be reached at spfarrer@gazettenet.com.
Fred DeVecca will read from “The Nutting Girl” at Broadside Books in Northampton on Sept. 20. His website is freddevecca.com. Emily Arsenault’s website is emilyarsenault.com.