Cascade

Sam Westin Mysteries #6

by Pamela Beason

Just as society is celebrating the fade of the COVID quarantine restrictions, Sam Westin suddenly finds her life in shambles. While she and her friends were enjoying a spring snow outing in the North Cascades, an earthquake launches multiple avalanches to wreak destruction on the slopes. Now skiers are dead and Sam’s lover, Chase, is fighting for his life.
In her logical mind, Sam knows that she can’t blame two wolverine poachers for the cascade of events that killed and injured so many in the mountains. But if she hadn’t needed to answer the call to rescue a trapped wolverine, she wouldn’t have been buried, and her friends would have been safely off the mountain and back home. And criminal associates of her troubled young protégé Maya wouldn’t have trashed her unoccupied house and injured her cat.
Why did two teens want to capture a wolverine, and why has nobody come forward to claim their bodies? Are baby wolverines, still hidden beneath the snow, starving to death because their mother was murdered? Sam has to find the answers to bring some sanity back to her world.

Genres: Mystery

316 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 22, 2022

About the author

Pamela Beason lives in the Pacific Northwest, where she writes novels and screenplays and works as a private investigator. When she's not on the job, she explores the natural world on foot, in cross-country skis, in her kayak, or underwater scuba diving.

Beason is the author of nine full-length fiction works: THE ONLY WITNESS, THE ONLY CLUE (books 1 and 2 of the Neema Mysteries); SHAKEN, CALL OF THE JAGUAR (romantic suspense novels), ENDANGERED, BEAR BAIT, and UNDERCURRENTS in the Summer "Sam" Westin series; and RACE WITH DANGER and RACE TO TRUTH, books 1 and 2 of a YA Run for Your Life adventure trilogy. She also wrote the nonfiction titles, SAVE YOUR MONEY, YOUR SANITY, AND OUR PLANET and SO YOU WANT TO BE A PI?. Pam's writing has earned her multiple prizes, including the Daphne du Maurier Award, two First Place prizes and two Grand Prizes in the Chanticleer Book Reviews Contest, and an Honorable Mention in a Library Journal contest.

As an avid outdoorswoman and animal lover, Beason challenges the human assumption that we are the superior species. Drifting through life is not enough; you have to live it.

Pamela blogs and tweets about writing, outdoor adventures, and the value of being present in the moment. She looks forward to connecting with readers on her Twitter, Goodreads Page or Blog.

Reviews

[merlin513 · Rating 5 out of 5]

What can I say but WOW!

Cascade is not your normal Sam Westin adventure.
In this book she’s on the Mt. Baker covering an extreme sports skiing competition when a conservationist friend grabs her to help check on the status of a radio-collared wolverine she’s been studying in the area. The signal shows that the animal is alive but hasn’t moved from the same position for a worrying amount of time and she’s afraid it may have been trapped by a poacher. So Sam and Gina trek off into the wilds away from the ski lodge to check.

Meanwhile her roomie Blake and his boyfriend & Chase and his former FBI partner and friend Nicole have been hitting the slopes.

Disaster strikes when there’s a quake triggering multiple avalanches throughout the area. Sam and Gina had just reached the collared wolverines signal in time to see a man stuff the drugged animal into a carrier and head for the treeline. Sam ends up fighting her way free of the wreckage and finding and digging a gravely injured Gina free. But there’s no sign of the poacher or the wolverine.

A separate avalanche takes out the ski slopes where Blake is and he watches it engulf his boyfriend and other skiers on the slope in stunned horror.

Meanwhile Chase and Nicole are catching up in the lodge when the full force of the ski slope avalanche pulverizes it and leaves them buried, trapped and injured in the wreckage.

Sam’s young protégé Maya is back to living in a tent in Sam’s back yard. This story is set just as the COVID lockdowns were beginning to lift and Maya’s had a rough go of it. Reeling from the death of her step-sister before she even got to meet her, she’s deeply depressed, dropped out of college and fallen in with the wrong crowd.

And this is just the first few chapters of the book!!!
The consequences are harrowing for each group and I personally thought Maya had more sense! But depression is a beast and shes got it bad, and things are fixing to get MUCH worse!

I guarantee the twist at the end will catch you totally off guard while still making perfect sense.

Here’s hoping everyone is recovering well in the next book. I’m rooting for a happy ending here Ms. Beason!!!

[Judith Trail · Rating 3 out of 5]

The various plots (all of them seemed like subplots) just did not really gel together, but seemed forced together merely by occurring at the same time. This made for a disjointed experience. The wolverine endangered species sub-plot, usually the center of a Sam Westin story, was overwhelmed by the other stories concerning Maya and her lack of direction, Sam and her uncertainty over commitment to Chase and the aftermath of a devastating set of avalanches. Also, I still marvel at Sam's ability to even walk after enduring the physical trauma she endures surviving in nature. Equally perplexing is her hostility to Maya, the orphaned girl that came into Sam's life in an earlier book. Sam was actually portrayed in a very unflattering light in this novel. Her independence appears as extreme selfishness as she is unwilling to show any empathy toward her closest friends who experience emotional trauma. I really did not understand the point of this book. It was unnecessary.

[DianeG · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my first Sam Westin book and I didn’t have any problems picking it up and jumping right into the fray. Sam finds herself caught in the nightmare of an avalanche while skiing while out searching for a wolverine she and her friend Gina have fallen in love with. Dead bodies and herself injured from the avalanche have Sam hurrying back to the lodge only to find it collapsed. Sam must find a way of saving those still alive, finding Chase and discovering why someone would want to capture a nursing wolverine.

In the book, there is danger and suspense mixed with friendship and caring. It’s a story that tricks you into thinking you know it all—until you don’t.

[Sophia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pamela Beason just gets better. Reading about the avalanche, I felt a vicarious experience. A wowser!
Hopefully we will have more Sam Westin books.

[Ann Marshall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good book

This is an exciting story. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys adventures and excitement. Hope to read more of Sam's adventures.

[Dave Weller]

Cascade is number six in the Sam Westin mystery series, and the last one currently available. I enjoyed this book quite a bit. There are really three plot threads in this book. The first revolves around the endangered wolverines of the northern Cascades in Washington and an attempt to illegally trap one. The second major theme is an earthquake and series of avalanches that strike in the area around Mt. Baker and the subsequent devastation and impact on the ski visitors on that day. Finally, there is the matter of Maya, the twenty-one year old former orphan who Sam has taken under her wing through several books. Maya is wandering aimlessly through life and associating with some very bad actors. Most of the ongoing characters from previous Sam Westin novels are present in this one including boyfriend Chase, his FBI partner, Nicole; and Sam's roommate, Blake. Gina is a friend of Sam's who is tracking the wolverine, Feisty. Eaze and James Winnow are bad dudes, who enter the picture. I love Beason's appreciation for all things outdoors through the Sam Westin character. Gina inherited a macaw named Zeke, and Zeke is capable of holding a fairly expansive conversation. These were some of my favorite dialogs of the book. The storyline seems set for continuation, so I look forward to book seven in some not too distant date.