Final Descent: A Whidbey Island Mystery

by Dan Pedersen

What if D.B. Cooper, who carried out the only unsolved airline hijacking in US history, was alive all this time, living quietly next door? What would he be like after nearly 50 years on the run from the FBI? By now he may have died of old age. Or he may have died 50 years ago when he jumped from a Boeing 727 in flight. But no remains were ever found. What if he lived? Cooper jumped from the aft stairs of a Northwest Orient Airlines 727 tri-jet at night, near Mount St. Helens, with $200,000 that he couldn't spend. It was a lot of money at the time -- worth more than a million dollars today. He'd be an old man now -- eighty something. He hijacked the jet on Thanksgiving eve of 1971, in a crime that is now part of Northwest lore. Cooper was a Robin Hood figure of sorts, carrying out a robbery so audacious you simply had to admire his grit. But for many the name draws a puzzled look. "I wasn't even born then," is the typical reaction now. In Final Descent, an old man dies alone in his secluded Whidbey Island cabin. It's apparent he was murdered, and that he may be D.B. Cooper. Young sheriff's deputy, Kat Brown, peels back the secrets in a dogged search for the killer and the truth.

185 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 24, 2020

About the author

I grew up in Western Washington and now make my home on Whidbey Island with my wife, Sue, and our adventurous canine, Duncan. We live in the woods with the deer, squirrels, owls, coyotes and other creatures that come and go when the spirit moves them.

After studying journalism at the University of Washington and receiving bachelor's and master's degrees, I became a reporter and editor for several newspapers in Washington and Idaho, including a large regional outdoor weekly. For most of my career I managed a magazine and other publications for a large insurance and financial services corporation.

But I saved the best for last. After giving up my good job in the city, I discovered how much fun writing could really be, starting with nature and rural life as my themes and, in time, evolving to writing mysteries, the most rewarding of all. What I love about mysteries is the platform they provide for my characters to stimulate reflection in the minds of readers.

My philosophy is my books should always entertain, but also give readers something more. Readers should come away having learned something new and been challenged to think about what they truly value in their lives.

Reviews

[Jason Pryde · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve lost track of how many Dan Pedersen books I’ve read and handed out as gifts. Dan’s work is part and parcel of Whidbey Island, definitive, explicative, integral, and canonical. The corpus of Whidbey culture would not be complete if it weren’t rendered in Dan’s unique realistic fiction style. He makes one proud to live here.
His latest book, “Final Descent”, expands into southwest Washington but that is just context for the local intrigue on Whidbey Island.
I suspect that Dan felt he was wearing out his standard cast of characters so he introduced a new female protagonist named Kat in a previous book and made her the lead character in this story. This gave him free range to explore some new traits. Even so, she shares a personal challenge with many of his other characters. She comes from a very difficult, more like tragic, early childhood with no father figure and a failed mother figure, forcing her to find her way to adulthood on her own. I think the moral here is that most people struggle through adolescence. Those that succeed get a protagonist role in Dan’s books and those that don’t either die unceremoniously or go to jail.
As in his other books Dan isn’t shy about dropping names of businesses from all parts of the island. At least in this book he hasn’t killed off any of my favorite service providers!
The format is also uniquely Dan Pedersen as the pace of developments in the story is at times frenetic which makes some chapters very short. I keep thinking that the plot could easily be turned in to a play script. In any case it qualifies as a “real page turner”.
As you can see, I like Dan Pedersen and I like his stories. I hope he has yet one more Whidbey Island Mystery in the works.