Author Chris Shella is a graduate of Morehouse College and the University of Texas Law School and started his legal career in Long Island, New York at the Nassau County District Attorney’s Office. He is admitted to the practice of law in New York, Maryland, the District of Columbia, and North Carolina. Shella is also admitted to the federal court in the Eastern District of North Carolina, the Middle District of North Carolina, U.S. District of Columbia, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals, the Eastern District of New York, and the Southern District of New York.He is also admitted to the Bar Of The United States Supreme Court. He and his cases have been covered on Court TV, CNN, and in the New York Times, and other media outlets across the globe. He has represented everyone from lawyers to major drug traffickers to a serial killer in Baltimore. His two most famous case are the Vegan Baby Case and his defense of the Duke Lacrosse Case accuser for the alleged murder of her boyfriend.
Chris now resides in Durham, North Carolina, with his wife and son.
His latest book is the legal thriller, Reasonable Facsimile.
You can visit his website at www.reasonablefacs.com.
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About Reasonable Facsimile
Can Jasper Davis pull himself from his life of loose women, liquor, and general debauchery in enough time to win a murder case and possibly save his own hide ? Jasper Davis is a criminal trial lawyer in Baltimore who has slowly but surely become like the drug dealers and lowlifes he represents. He spends more time with hookers than clients and more time drinking Jack Daniels than studying the law books. Simply put. he is a shade of his former self. In Reasonable Facsimile, Jasper is in the middle of a first degree murder trial when he becomes the suspect in the murder of a DEA agent who was set to testify against his client. Jasper is so far gone on women and liquor he sees his trial skills deteriorate right before his eyes. Jasper is confronted by the situation is he gonna continue to be a reasonable facsimile of a human being or is he gonna become the man he once was.
Interview
Q: Thank you for this interview, Chris. Can you tell us what your latest book, “Reasonable Facsimile”, is all about?
Can Jasper Davis pull himself from his life of loose women, liquor, and general debauchery in enough time to win a murder case and possibly save his own hide ? Jasper Davis is a criminal trial lawyer in Baltimore who has slowly but surely become like the drug dealers and lowlifes he represents. He spend more times with hookers than clients and more time drinking Jack Daniels than studying the lawbooks. Simply put. he is a shade of his former self. In Reasonable Facsimile, Jasper is in the middle of a first degree murder trial when he becomes the suspect in the murder of a DEA agent who was set to testify against his client. Jasper is so far gone on women and liquor he sees his trial skills deteriorate right before his eyes. Jasper is confronted by the situation is he gonna continue to be a reasonable facsimile of a human being or is he gonna become the man he once was.
Q: Can you tell us a little about your main and supporting characters?
Jasper is a lawyer who has seen better days and is a shell of a man. He has lost the spark of life and is just trudging along toward the end of his life. His book is his crosssroads. Will Jasper continue on this path or will he choose a real life again.
Q: Do you tend to base your characters on real people or are they totally from your imagination?
Well, it more of a mixture. Some characters are total fabrications. Others are a mixture of several people and several different life choices or traits that they have exhibited.
Q: Are you consciously aware of the plot before you begin a novel, or do you discover it as you write?
I’m aware of the plot, but not how it will end.
Q: Your book is set in Baltimore, Maryland. Can you tell us why you chose this city in particular?
Baltimore is a vibrant city that is living and dying at the same time. As a trial lawyer, I have never seen a courthouse and its denizens as lively and wild as in Bodymore, Murdaland.
Q: Does the setting play a major part in the development of your story?
It does. The trial in the book is based on Maryland Criminal Procedure and the quirks therein.
Q: Open the book to page 69. What is happening?
Interestingly enough, that page finds Jasper indulging in an intimate fantasy with dreamgirls.
Q: Can you give us one of your best excerpts?
PRELUDE: CRACKED BONES
` The sickening crunch of a tooth being forced out of a jaw by a work boot was audible 50 feet from where it happened. Picture a 6’4 monster strong, malevolent, and angered, raining misery on a small 72 year old man without the strength to defend himself. Blood rolls down the streets in rivulets, coalescing on a bottle cap here and curb there. All of it fleeing the scene of the crime. Like the old man wish he could have. All the while this circus is going on; a throng of 30 + people watch this macabre dance of death. No one is doing anything to stop it. No one is doing anything to call the police. Faces mesmerized by the shattered bones and ruined shell of an old man. Sounds of agony escape destroyed lips. Mercifully, the coup de grace. A bullet snuffs out the pain, the agony, and the life of a man. With a laugh, the assailant puts away the gun, hails a hack and leaves the old man as an obscene monument to the end of life. Linwood White is dead. A murderer has fled the scene. Baltimore street justice or a reasonable facsimile?
Thank you so much for this interview, Chris. We wish you much success!
As The Pages Turn 