After a savage attack that leaves a teenager dead, Andrea Brady, a 35-year-old police officer, gets trapped in every cop’s worst nightmare. And Justice, her beloved K-9 German shepherd partner, is left fighting for his life. Placed on administrative leave, she’s pursued by the media and investigated by a deputy sheriff who will recommend whether she’ll be fired, exonerated, or sent to prison. Yet despite her worry and self-doubt, Andrea and Justice begin to heal, and with the help of her Puget Sound community, she learns important lessons about justice and forgiveness. The story shows their journey from tragedy to love and hope.
2. How did you get the idea for A Healing Justice?
I’d already written An Unexpected Grace about a golden retriever and Earnest about a yellow Lab, and I decided to write about a K-9 German shepherd, since I’ve had six of the breed. To do research, I signed up for the Police Department’s Citizens Academy on the island where I live.
In one class, I was roleplaying a police officer responding to a 9-1-1 call for help. I was told, “An intruder has broken into that house up the hill. Go take care of it.” Even though the assignment was make believe, the higher up the hill I got, the more genuinely frightened I became. No one was there to back me up. I could have screamed, and no one would have heard.
As I approached the house, suddenly a man ran out from behind it, waving a gun and yelling, “I’m going to kill you!” With adrenaline coursing through me, I shot him in the heart with my laser gun. In that instant I learned that I was not the congenital pacifist I’d always thought I was; an instinct for self-preservation had trumped my moral principles about nonviolence. And I understood the fear that police face all the time.
I also knew that I wanted to write about a fictional officer who has a life-or-death moment like that and who must live with the consequences of protecting herself. Of course, since I always write about animals, I wanted a German shepherd to help her through that trauma.
3. What was your purpose for writing A Healing Justice?
As with all my books, I intended to convey the importance of animals in our lives, specifically how a dog helps someone work her way through a difficult situation. I believe that animals can heal us, guide us, teach us, and enrich us in countless ways, as Justice does Andrea Brady. As always, my goal was to show the potential depth and beauty of the human-animal bond.
4. How did you become a writer?
Many years ago I met a magazine writer in a California art gallery. At the time I was teaching college English, and she suggested I use my writing skills to freelance, as she had done. Though I’d won a prize for an essay in sixth grade, I’d never thought of being a writer. That wonderful woman became my mentor. I owe her to this day for changing my life.
5. After writing three nonfiction books, why novels now?
Many years ago three of my novels were published under a pseudonym; but writing magazine and newspaper articles enticed me away from fiction because they were easier and quicker and interesting to research. Later, my love of animals led me to write nonfiction books about them. But I always missed the freedom of writing novels, and I love trying to create something beautiful out of nothing more than my imagination. So getting back to fiction was a natural step in my career.
4. Why do you write about animals?
The answer is simple: There’s no way I could not write about them.
I was born on October 4, the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi, and I have always been supremely sensitive to creatures. As a young child, I cried so hard when cowboys dug their spurs into horses’ sides in western movies that my father had to take me to the lobby. When I grew older, I rescued needy dogs and cats.
As an adult, I wrote articles on dozens of subjects for magazines and newspapers but never considered writing about animals. Then I had an accident and injured four disks in my spine. For months unable to work, I lay on my office sofa with Bea, my beloved beagle, loyally cuddled up beside me, and I didn’t know if I’d ever be pain-free enough to write again.
When your career is hanging in the balance like that, you do some serious thinking. And I slowly realized that I’d been writing about subjects that had meant nothing to me. I wondered, what’s the meaning of my life? Bea reminded me that I’d always loved animals more than anything. So why wasn’t I writing about them?
I vowed that if I were ever strong enough to work again, I’d align my heart with my career. And that’s what I’ve done in my animal articles, nonfiction books, and novels. I’ve tried to show how worthy animals are, how important they can be to us, how much they have to teach. And I hope somehow that my work is helping to improve their lives. I want to give back to the world some of the love and kindness that animals have given me.
5. How did you become an animal advocate?
Nothing upsets me more than suffering animals. Though I’ve tried to help them all my life, Bea, a beagle whom I found lost on my road one night, galvanized me into more serious advocacy.
I brought her home and learned from a tattoo in her ear that she had come from a research lab. She was so frightened that she literally vibrated from head to tail if my husband—or any man—came near her. I could hardly bear imagining what had happened to her, but after two years of love and patience, she blossomed. One day she visited her male vet without a quiver of fear, and I knew that she had healed.
I wrote For Bea, a memoir of coaxing her into being a normal dog. And because of her, I worked harder for animals than ever before. I took injured wildlife for emergency care, fed every hungry creature who crossed my path, and volunteered for animal organizations. I gave speeches and wrote articles and books about the value of animals and the importance of treating them with kindness. Even my novels have advocated for animals in one way or another.
6. Do you have pets? Dogs? Cats?
I’ve always had dogs and cats, including a feral colony of kitties, who lived on my porch. But several years ago Logan, my beloved German shepherd, and Phoebe, my beloved beagle, died in the same month. I was devastated—for the first time in my life I had no pets. My husband and I grieved for a long and lonely year until, finally, I persuaded him that we had to get another dog. So we adopted our sixth German shepherd, Bridget, who was found starving, sick, and close to death in the desert near San Bernardino, California. Thank goodness the Washington German Shepherd Rescue brought her to Seattle where we met her! She is a joy! I’ll never again go for longer than a couple of weeks without an animal in the house.
7. Do you believe that animals have feelings?
Absolutely. No question about it. When I first started writing about animals, however, many experts told me that animals had no emotions and did not even think! Determined to show those experts wrong, I collected thousands of stories of animal kindness, loyalty, and courage. To me, the stories added up to data in a small field study, which proved that animals do have feelings and can act on them. Now most experts seem to have come around to recognizing animal emotion, and much research is being done. Views have changed. A miracle!
8. What have you learned from animals? How do animals teach us?
I have learned so much from animals about compassion, loyalty, courage, resourcefulness, generosity, fortitude – my list could go on. For example, years ago when Logan, my German shepherd, was recovering from surgery, he lay on his bed for several months without complaining and showed courage like none I’d ever seen before. I swore to myself that if I were ever in a similar situation, I’d try to be as noble as he was. If we open our eyes, we can see that animals are constantly teaching us and setting examples.
