Local detail

Writer sets two Sasquatch themed novels in Pend Oreille County

NEWPORT – One of the people at the upcoming Bigfoot Festival in Metaline Falls, set for June 1516, is writer Alfred Anderson, who has written two novels set in Pend Oreille County. They both have a mysterious and benevolent female Sasquatch character. Anderson, 72, said he isn’t sure where he got the idea of Sasquatch character for his self-published novels “Sasha, My Guardian Sasquatch,” and “Little Sasha: Sasha Sasquatch’s namesake.”

He says the idea of having a Sasquatch character was like an epiphany for him as he set about writing the first novel.

“I was a real big Sasquatch freak,” he says. “I knew about them, and I thought, you know, what do I do that would really grab the audience, what would be unique. Like I say, it was like an epiphany.”

He thought the idea of a benevolent Bigfoot character hadn’t been done before. Anderson says a company promoting the book liked the idea.

“They liked the idea of a friendly Sasquatch,” he says. He said the books will be promoted at book fairs around the world. “They want to try to link me up with a main street publisher to maybe buy the rights and also with some movie producers.”

Both books are rich in Pend Oreille County detail. In the first book “Sasha, My Guardian Sasquatch,” published in 2023, the main character, Sean Anderson, walks into the Pend Oreille County Sheriff’s Office, meets with the sheriff and ultimately goes to work as a deputy. He is introduced to a cashier, Angelina, at the local Spokane Teachers Credit Union. They fall in love, eventually marrying.

The novel, equal parts romance novel, adventure story and thriller, has scenes set in Kelly’s Bar & Grill, SCTCU, The Metaline Mini Mart and, of course, the Sheriff’s Office. The Newport Miner is also mentioned.

Anderson, the main character, speaks both Spanish and English, having been raised in Costa Rica by his American father and Costa Rican mother.

Anderson, the writer, works himself into the book as the father of the main character. In the novel, he is a retired sheriff. In real life, Anderson worked six years in law enforcement in southern Idaho, coming to the profession at age 40, after starting and selling four businesses.

“It was the best decision of my life,” he says. “Because I was semi-retired at the time, had sold all my businesses. I was either going to be a lawyer or a in law enforcement.”

Anderson’s real life includes living in both Washington and Costa Rica.

“I try not to be here in the winter,” he says. He met his wife when he attended a Spanish school in Costa Rica. She was a professor there.

He was born and raised in Minnesota. In “Sasha, My Guardian Sasquatch,” Sean Anderson encounters a young female Sasquatch trapped with leg caught in a logging chain bear trap. He frees her and she disappears, reappearing at various times, once to save his life after he is shot by a Sinaloa drug cartel assassin.

The drug cartels are present in both novels, smuggling people and drugs over the north border. Deputy Anderson, the main character, starts investigating, leading to a shootout in the STCU parking lot in which he kills a cartel member approaching Angelina with a knife.

Anderson said he tried to include details of both Newport and the county itself. He met with Pend Oreille County Sheriff Glenn Blakeslee a couple times. Dawn is the name of one of the characters in “Sasha, My Guardian Sasquatch.”

Not so coincidently, Dawn Taylor works in the Sheriff’s Office. Mark and Kenny of Kelly’s Bar and Grill show up the book.

Anderson says he wrote his books on his iPad.

“I would literally sit for eight hours at a time,” he says.

It didn’t take him long to write his first novel.

“I wrote the book in about a month and a half,” he says.

His writing plan is pretty simple. “I try to incorporate a good storyline, develop characters, make a love story but also incorporate current themes into the book, such as illegal immigration from the north,” he says. “Most people don’t understand that that is occurring.”

The second Sasquatch novel follows the same characters five years later.

The main character, now Sheriff Anderson, decides to form a deputized militia to protect the county from two entities, its own government and military aged males coming in from the south.

“The sheriffs are the only real authority that can protect their counties,” he says. “They’re the ultimate authority in the county.”

The Sasquatch books aren’t Anderson’s first books. His first book was a non-fiction book called “Deputy – Know Your Rights: A Cop’s True Story.”

He hasn’t started his next book yet. He is hopeful that one of the Sasquatch books will be turned into a movie.

“Don’t be surprised one day if a production company shows up and does some filming,” he says.