New Thriller Is “All-Too-Believable White-Knuckle Action Story”
BOOK NEWS
By Carol Deegan
Associated Press Writer

Doug Lam finds himself trapped on an island that could be washed away at any mo-ment by a deadly tsunami in John J. Nance’s timely new thriller, “Saving Cascadia” (Simon & Schuster. 352 pages. $25).

The Seattle seismologist believes that pile drivers and explosives used in the construction of a world-class resort and convention center on tiny Casca-dia Island have pulled the trigger on a massive earthquake that could kill thou-sands up and down the Pacific Coast.

Lam had tried to warn the resort’s developer, Mick Walker, who called him a “closet environmentalist who’s outraged because I pushed some smel-ly seabirds off their filthy perch and cleaned it up.”

Yet seismic test data compiled for Walker indicates that Cascadia is above a hidden fault line so profoundly active that his resort would end up pulled in two by any substantial earthquake.

Either that data was hidden from Walker by the renowned engineering and architectural firm that had done most of the work on the complex, or Walker knew and chose to ignore it.

Nature begins to shake things up as guests gather for the grand opening of Walker’s resort. As tremors begin to course through the island, a 60-foot-long crack cuts through the marble floor of the convention center. The ferry transporting passengers to Cascadia is hit by the quake’s vibrations, loses steer-ing, crashes into the dock and starts to sink.

The quakes become stronger, and part of the hotel collapses. The only way to evacuate Walker’s guests, in-cluding the injured, is by helicopter, with Jennifer Lindstrom and the pi-lots of her medical transport company called in to assist in the rescue efforts.

Nance weaves complex characters and relationships into his pulsating nar-rative, including Lindstrom’s rocky romance with Lam, and Walker’s relationship with his goddaughter Diane Lacombe, whose company prepared the engineering reports on Cascadia.

Lam and Lindstrom, in a desperate race against the clock, try to find a way to halt the inevitable as the island begins to sink. Lam is warned: “Cas-cadia has now dropped 1.8 feet...And if you can’t get those impacts stopped, it’s going to be all over in a matter of hours.’’

As their options dwindle, chopper pilot Lindstrom flies into the waves and the wind — and certain death — as Nance, author of “Pandora’s Clock” and “Fire Flight,” keeps readers turning the pages in this all-too-believable white-knuckle action story.