Poulsbo author Michael Donnelly got his feet wet in the publishing industry last year with the release of his young adult novel, “Awakening Curry Buckle.” Now he’s heading for deeper water with the first adult mystery novel in what he hopes will become a series, set in the San Juan Islands.

Donnelly presents “False Harbor” at 2 p.m. Sept. 30 at Liberty Bay Books in Poulsbo. The book is published by Windstorm Creative.

The book features a female protagonist, small-town newspaper reporter Egret VanGerpin, who gets sucked into a mystery surrounding a reclusive sculptor, Anton Gropius, whose work is being vandalized.

Donnelly, a retired labor relations director at Subase Bangor, said he chose to write from a female point of view because that’s what the story demanded — “someone who could draw out others’ secrets, who would be underestimated and vulnerable to the wrath of the villain,” he said.

He chose the San Juans as the setting because of his love for the area, and for kayaking.

“The freest I ever feel is when my wife and I put the kayaks on the car, head for the San Juans and paddle off into the endless archipelago of islands between the United and Canada.”

That love of the water is reflected in “False Harbor,” as is a healthy respect for the sea.

Early in the book VanGerpin makes a harrowing crossing to the rocky island where Gropius has been in self-imposed exile for years. Donnelly’s description of the crossing shows his ability as a writer of adventure as well as mystery: “Instinctively I leaned into the shoulder-high curl and reached my paddle over it in a high brace, but the blast of wind arrived and turned my paddle aside before it hit water. My body lean kept me upright as the boat scudded sideways, and perhaps I would have pulled out of the broach if my stern hadn’t hit a deadhead log. I felt the bump, the sudden loss of balance, and, with a punishing swiftness that didn’t even permit a breath, the wave drove me over.”

In fact Donnelly doesn’t like to pigeonhole the book as a mystery.

“The mystery genre of today is lumped in with crime fiction. I’m not really interested in crime per se,” he said, noting that murder mysteries are more concerned with the gory details of the crime than the human element.

“My territory has more to do with the character of people dealing with evil than dwelling on the gory details,” he added. “I think my stories are a blend of mystery, adventure, suspense and scholarship.”

While such stories are typically plot-driven, Donnelly spends a great deal of time developing the characters as well. VanGerpin, for example, is based on the author’s sense that life should have significance. “She is driven to achieve, but doesn’t know where that will lead,” he said.

The character of Gropius is based partly on the sculptor Korczak Ziolowski, the man who envisioned and created the Crazy Horse monument in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

When Donnelly was a child his father was a small-town journalist who knew Ziolowski and often took the family to hear the sculptor’s stories.

“We would spend hours listening to his stories. I remember it in vivid detail — the force of his character and what he endured,” Donnelly said. “That comes out in the character of the sculptor.”

Donnelly is planning on writing a series of “San Juan Mysteries,” featuring VanGerpin. A second book is in the works, but Donnelly isn’t rushing it to press. He doesn’t see himself in the two-book-a-year author club.

“I don’t like to read that kind of book. I like an author who respects readers enough to polish a book and add depth to the characters,” he said. “I write what I like to read.”

Donnelly plans to release “False Harbor” locally first, with the Liberty Bay Books reading Sept. 30 and a book launch event at Eagle Harbor Bookstore on Bainbridge Island Oct. 29.

Liberty Bay Books is located at 18881-D Front St., Poulsbo.