Healing justice: Island author launches latest pet-centric novel

The highly publicized atrocious acts of a few outliers have cast a seemingly permanent pall over the entire group to which one of the main characters in Bainbridge Island author Kristin von Kreisler’s latest novel belongs.

And the other one’s a cop.

Officer Andrea Brady, along with her black-muzzled, slightly rumpled German shepherd Justice, are the damaged pair at the heart of “A Healing Justice,” which will debut with a free public book launch party at Eagle Harbor Book Company at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 18.

Dogs are, of course, welcome. Free biscuits will be provided.

In the book, police officer Brady is haunted by self-doubt and in danger of losing everything — her career, her freedom, and the critically injured dog who’s her soul mate — in the wake of a violent episode.

Brady just got home after an overtime shift, ready for some R&R with her K9 partner and best friend, when Justice suddenly ran into the woods behind their house. After a brief struggle, he’s stabbed and howling in pain, and a man with a knife is running at Brady. Terrified, she shoots him dead, only to find that the “man” was a scared boy — Christopher, a teen who lived just down the road. Now, she has been placed on administrative leave, is pursued by media and investigated by a deputy sheriff whose handling of the high-profile case could earn him a coveted promotion.

It’s a rough place to begin, but that’s always kind of been Kreisler’s M.O. (her previous title, “An Unexpected Grace,” begins with a workplace shooting).

“I like to have drama to start it off and some sort of a mess that people have to get out of and grow and heal from and grow through,” she said. “Because life is full of messes, as we all know.”

The other constant in her work? Animals, of course. Dogs, typically, but regardless of species her non-human characters have proved as compelling for readers as any conflicted cop or haunted survivor.

“Everything I’ve been writing for the last 20 years has to do with animals, the importance of animals in our lives,” Kreisler said. “I’m a very passionate animal lover.”

That philosophy extends past the prose as well. In fact, Kreisler famously directs the money made from her books to animal-friendly causes.

“I love all animals,” she said. “My birthday is Oct. 4, which is the Francis of Assisi feast day. I don’t think it’s an accident that I was born on that day because ever since I was born I’ve loved animals more than anything.

“I try to write bestsellers and I’m very committed to that because I’m trying to earn money for animals. Everything I earn writing about animals I’ve been saving to help animals, I’m totally committed to that.”

The inspiration for the book came from personal experiences close to home: Kreisler’s attending the Bainbridge Island Police Department Citizen’s Police Academy, a cop-run community outreach program which gives participants a hands-on look at the function and duties of the BIPD and other local related agencies.

Kreisler said she already knew the species of her next subject, but the rest was a blank until a friend, who had previously attended the academy, recommended she enroll.

“The [Citizen’s] Police Academy had everything to do with why I wrote that book,” she said, find it “endlessly interesting.”

“It was one of the most interesting things I’d done in years and years and years,” Kreislerf added. “It was a real education for me. I used all that stuff; I took notes frantically.”

The real clincher, though, was the tactical workshop, wherein students play the part of police officers responding to an uncertain call. For the author, it was an experience that ended in a real reckoning and fake bloodshed.

“Walking up the hill, I got really scared going up because I was getting farther and farther away from people,” she recalled. “And they’d said, ‘Oh, there’s somebody up there.’ And I thought, well this is just make-believe, but by the time I got up to the top I was shaking like a leaf.

“I was so focused, thinking it was going to be bad,” she said. “And [the actor] was waving a gun at me and screaming, ‘I’m going to kill you!’

“I didn’t want to shoot him and I didn’t know what to do, and finally … I just shot him right in the heart. I thought, ‘Goodness, I’m a savage.’”

It was a revelatory moment.

“I realized that I could kill somebody,” Kreisler said. “I’d thought, ‘Oh, not innocent gentle me?’”

The book was begun a full year before the infamous events in Ferguson, Missouri, Kreisler said. But the world caught up quickly.

“It just amazed me that suddenly I’d stepped into this minefield,” she said. “I was well into the book when that stuff started happening and I got kind of scared about what would happen.”

The book is not an exoneration, however. It’s not pro cop so much as it is pro rationality — and justice, of course.

“I know there are bad actors everywhere, so we can’t say the police are virtuous angels or anything because some of them aren’t,” the author said. “There’s an inspirational element in most of my books, like about hope or about forgiveness. This one is about justice.”

Visit www.eagleharborbooks.com to learn more about the book launch, or www.kristinvonkreisler.com.

Healing justice: Island author launches latest pet-centric novel
Healing justice: Island author launches latest pet-centric novel
Healing justice: Island author launches latest pet-centric novel