The Right Wrong Thing by Ellen Kirschman
These
are hard times to be a cop. There are days when it seems like the actions of a
few have tainted the entire law enforcement profession. When I began
writing the Right Wrong Thing I was simply trying to write a good story
about what happens when a cop shoots an innocent person. I never anticipated
the headline-making shootings of unarmed citizens or the groundswell of protest
that would follow.
My protagonist is psychologist, Dr. Dot Meyerhoff. Dot was
my mother's name and Meyerhoff was my maternal grandmother's surname. Neither
lived to read my mysteries. It makes me happy to honor them in this way.
My books are inspired by clients, all of whom I've deeply
disguised to protect their identities. I've lost count of how many officers
I've counseled after a shooting. (For that matter, I've also lost track of how
many officers' funerals I've attended.) Many are temporarily experiencing
physical, cognitive, and behavioral symptoms. For them, time slows down or
speeds up. Hands or weapons appear larger than life. Gunshots don't sound the
way they do on the firing range. Memory degrades. So does patience.
Isolation increases. It's hard to sleep, to stop thinking about the
shooting or to engage in normal family activities. These are all involuntary
reactions generated by a storm of stress hormones and neuro-chemicals activated
by the human response to threats against survival. Normal or not, post-traumatic
stress can make an officer feel as though she's going crazy.
The client who inspired this book struggled to come
to terms with having killed a person even though the shooting was deemed lawful
and justified. Like Randy Spelling, the fictional officer who mistakenly shoots
and kills an unarmed pregnant teenager in The Right Wrong Thing, my
client had nightmares and suffered from extreme guilt and remorse. Unlike
Randy, she found a good therapist (apologies for tooting my own horn) to help
her recover.
I am very grateful to so many officers who have allowed me
to fictionalize their stories and helped me get the details right. It is my
hope that my books are not only good reads but are informative and shed some
light on the too often unacknowledged emotional risks of being a cop or being
married to one.
Readers ask me what they can do to support their police. I
have a simple suggestion. Next time you see a cop – smile. They face so much
negativity in their daily lives, a simple smile, or saying something like
"thanks for being on the job" or "be safe" can make their
day. Try it. Let me know how it works for you. And thanks Jungle Reds for
letting me haul my soapbox over to your wonderful blog.
Book Blurb:
Officer Randy Spelling had
always wanted to be a police officer, to follow in the footsteps of her
brothers and her father. Not long after joining the force, she mistakenly
shoots and kills Lakeisha Gibbs, a pregnant teenager. The community is
outraged; Lakeisha’s family is vocal and vicious in their attacks against
Spelling. Suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, and filled with
remorse, Randy is desperate to apologize to the girl’s family. Everyone,
including the police chief, warns her against this, but the young police
officer will not be dissuaded. Her attempt is catastrophic. Dr. Dot Meyerhoff,
police psychologist, plunges herself into the investigation despite orders from
the police chief to back off. Not only does the psychologist’s refusal to obey
orders jeopardize her career, but her life as well, as she enlists unlikely
allies and unconventional undercover work to expose the tangled net of Officer
Spelling’s disastrous course.
BIO:
BIO:
Ellen Kirschman, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist in
independent practice. She is a member of the International Association of
Chiefs of Police, the Society for the Study of Police and Criminal Psychology,
the American Psychological Association, and the International Association of
Women in Law Enforcement. She is the recipient of the California Psychological
Association's 2014 award for distinguished contribution to psychology as well
as the American Psychological Association's 2010 award for outstanding
contribution to the practice of police and public safety psychology.
Ellen is
the author of the award-winning I Love a Cop: What Police Families Need
to Know, I Love a Fire Fighter: What the Family Needs to Know,
and lead author of Counseling Cops: What Clinicians Need to Know.
The Right Wrong Thing is her second mystery. Her debut
novel, Burying Ben is about police suicide told from
the perspective of the psychologist.
Ellen and her husband live in Redwood
City, California.
Comments
Marilyn-You are one classy lady, and a hell of a writer.
Diane