Shelley appeared in the first installment of the telefilm series Frederick Forsyth Presents. It was a set of six telefilms by internationally acclaimed author Frederick Forsyth; and they were all original spy thrillers. The first of them, A Casualty of War, was aired in December of 1989. The film was about the efforts of the British Intelligence to uncover an arms smuggling operation in Europe. In the film, Shelley played Monica Browne, the love interest of retired British secret service agent Tom Rowse (played by English actor David Threlfall) who was recruited to intercept an arms shipment from Libya to the IRA. But Monica had her secrets.
Shelley said she read Forsyth's books as a young girl and found them to be "very macho, exciting Cold War stuff." In the film, she was the only American among the predominantly British cast. She laughed this off and said, "Yes, I'm the token." But she enjoyed working with her British co-stars and found their approach to their craft very interesting. The telefilm was shot in England, Germany and Yugoslavia. It was initially released on VHS and subsequently on DVD.
