The heart-pounding thriller of a series continues as FBI Special Agent Meg Jennings and her search-and-rescue K-9 companion confront the fury of nature—and the more dangerous nature of man . . . In the wake of a devastating hurricane, Special Agent Meg Jennings and her Labrador, Hawk—invaluable members of the FBI’s Human Scent Evidence Team—have been deployed to Virginia Beach. They have their … They have their work cut out for them. Amid graveyards of debris, and the buried cries for help, the search and rescue operation begins. The most alarming discovery is yet to come—a teenage girl hiding in the Great Dismal Swamp. Shaken by the storm, she has reason to be scared. But this young survivor is terrified of so much more.
Her name is Emma—a disheveled runaway lost to the sordid underbelly of a Virginia sex-trafficking ring. Its leader has disappeared in the chaos—along with other victims. With so much evidence, and so many witnesses, seemingly washed away, Meg joins forces with Special Agent Walter Van Cleave to ensure no further harm comes to their vulnerable charge. They soon discover that this is no small-time localized syndicate. Its branches are rooted in some of the most influential powers in Virginia. Now as Meg’s investigation digs deeper, she’s making some very dangerous enemies. And one by one, they’re coming out of the storm to stop her.
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STORM RISING (FBI K-9 Book #3) by Sara Driscoll is another exciting addition to the FBI K-9 series. This book has Meg Jennings and her search and rescue Labrador retriever, Hawk once again embroiled in a fast-paced plot that starts as a search and rescue after a hurricane and turns into a crime thriller involving human trafficking and the underage sex-slave trade.
In the wake of Hurricane Cole, all hands are on deck for rescues around Virginia Beach. Meg, Hawk and all of her FBI team members are sent to help search for survivors. Lt. Todd Webb is sent to assist as a paramedic/firefighter so they ride down together. As they are out together, Webb spots an overturned van in a creek bed. They rush to check it out and find two young girls tied to their seats dead. Meg and Hawk take over and search for anyone who might have escaped the van.
Hawk finds Emma, a runaway entrapped in a sex-slave ring. The case is turned over to Special Agent Walter Van Cleave, but due to Emma’s connection to Meg and Hawk, he asks for their help. Van and Meg join forces and soon realize that this case is much more complicated than a small-time syndicate. This case will take Van and Meg into the lives of powerful, influential people who all believe they are above the law.
Once again, this author had me completely engrossed in her plot and characters. Meg and Hawk make an amazing team. It is interesting to learn about the training and abilities of all the dogs on this FBI team. Meg, Cara, Webb and McCord are becoming quite the human team. Meg’s family and friends all have roles to play after the hurricane and I love to see how they have become more fleshed out as the series has continued. I hope to see more of Emma in future stories, also.
This book can be read as a standalone, but the relationships of all the main characters continues to grow and you become more attached with each book so I recommend reading them in order.
Thank you very much to Kensington Books, Sara Driscoll and Net Galley for allowing me to read this eARC.
Storm Rising by Sara Driscoll
An FBI K-9 Novel #3
Exciting read from beginning to end! Thoroughly enjoyed this book and can’t wait to read more in this series!!!
Meg Jennings has been called out after a hurricane to locate survivors. Taking her canine partner with her she and Hawk have some exceptionally harrowing finds before the main story even begins. When Todd Webb, firefighter and paramedic, sees a van tipped over in water along the road he has Meg pull over to see what is what. Finding two young girls dead in the van they soon realize there is more to this than an accident related to a hurricane. Meg and Hawk head out to find a trail that may lead to others that were in the van hoping to find one or more alive. That stop by the road leads to a HUGE investigation into a human trafficking ring dealing in young women with fingers in a variety of other revenue sources.
Following the threads to a satisfactory ending in which the bad guys are caught is the frosting on the cake. What is the cake? The main characters that have become the core of this series. Meg and Hawk are a team that is difficult to beat. The people she works with seem stellar. Her sister Cara and Washington Post reporter McCord (the man Cara is dating) add so much to each book. Her parents are there to round out the group. And, in this book we met Van Cleave – an FBI agent working in human trafficking that is THE person you would want on your team both as a friend and a professional.
The writing was superb and kept me entertained and on the edge of my seat waiting to see how the story would unfold. I loved the educational tidbits at the beginning of each chapter and found them something I looked forward to reading and learning from.
Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington Books for the ARC – This is my honest review.
5 Stars
4 stars
FBI Special Agent Meg Jennings and her scent/search & rescue dog Hawk are called out to a hurricane search & rescue for the Carolinas and Virginia. Pleased that she will be traveling with her boyfriend Todd Webb a firefighter and paramedic. Her sister Cara lives with Meg and her boyfriend is reporter Clay McCord. Clay happens to be in the area reporting on the storm as well.
Meg and Hawk begin the heartbreaking yet rewarding (sometimes), task of looking for survivors and those who did not make it. The people are those who ignored the evacuation orders, for they didn’t want to leave their homes open to the looters that unfortunately follow every disaster.
They make several rescues and then when driving to a new area, Todd notices a van overturned in the river. Inside, they find two bodies of very young girls dressed totally inappropriately. It is clear that they are being sold in the sex trade. There are a couple of places where it looks like some of the girls might have gotten away.
Hawk and Meg follow the scents and find one young girl under some bleachers. Wary at first, they convince her to let them take her to the hospital. She has a compound fracture of her leg which is why she couldn’t go any farther. She had another girl with her named Emma. Hawk and Meg set out to find Emma. Her trail leads through the Great Dismal Swamp – perfect name for the place, by the way. They locate her being attacked by an alligator.
Meg hooks up with SAC Walter “Van” Van Cleave and together they convince Emma that she can trust them – especially Hawk. Emma has formed quite an attachment to Hawk.
What follows is an investigation in which Meg, Hawk, Todd, Van and Clay join together to nab a sex-trafficking ring. Some of the leaders are very high level. But the raids go off beautifully.
This is a very well written and plotted novel. I like very much the relationship between Meg and her partner Hawk. He is a wonderful dog who has an absolutely great and compassionate handler. The book is filled with tense moments and action as the search for the girls and later the apprehension of the bad guys is carried out.
I want to thank NetGalley and Kensington Books/Kensington for forwarding to me a copy of this wonderful book for me to read, enjoy and review.
Hurricane Cole is about to hit Virginia and the Carolinas. FBI K-9 Handler Meg Jennings and her Labrador Retriever partner Hawk, along with the rest of her fellow team members from the FBI Human Scent Evidence Team are being sent to Virginia Beach for search and rescue duty. Meg’s boyfriend, Lt. Todd Webb of DC Fire and Emergency Services is called out too. They decide to travel together. The destruction is devastating. Meg and her fellow search and rescue team are hard pressed to find survivors in the wreckage, While traveling to another search area Meg and Todd stop when they find a wrecked white van off the side of the highway. What they find inside is horrifying. Two young girls are dead but the disturbing part of their find is that the young girls were dressed very provocatively and also were restrained. It looks like sex trafficking. There is evidence at least one girl managed to escape from the wreck. Meg and Hawk set out to try to find whoever managed to escape. Now Meg and Hawk are assigned to the FBI team that is tasked with finding those running the sex-trafficking ring.
Storm Rising is the third book in author Sara Driscoll’s F.B.I. K-9 series. The first two books in the series, Lone Wolf and Before It’s Too Late introduce the main characters and set up their relationships. Both of these books are excellent reads! Storm Rising continues Sara Driscoll’s exciting and action-packed adventures and cases with Meg Jennings, Hawk and her friends and family. These books are fascinating to read. Lots of research goes into each story which makes for a very realistic read. Search and rescue following a powerful hurricane and tracking down sex-trafficking criminals are both intense subjects and this author presents the ups and downs of both quite well. I can’t praise this author’s creativity and writing style enough. Find out for yourself what great stories she writes. Storm Rising is not to be missed!
I’ve gotton on a SERVICE DOG kick lately. STORM RISING, by Sara Driscoll, is one of the best todate. Never even thought search and rescue dogs being used during a hurricane…toss in human trafficking along w/ a touch on the private prison system and you’ve got yourself a learning experince wrapped up in a good book.
I really, really like this series, but they do have to be read in order to understand who all the players are and the settings.
STORM RISING starts with a hurricane (best part), works it’s way through storm-damaged and flooded Norfolk and ends up in a courtroom. My 20+ years in animal rescue make me really agree with the authors’ philosophy that our animal friends give back so much more than they take.
Great descriptions of the destruction of a hurricane on the Virginia Beach area and the first responders who go in to help those who did not evacuate before a storm. This book really gave me a new perspective on this situation. There was a lot of action that kept the story moving and made me want to keep reading when I should have been doing other things. The story was so engaging and the characters felt so real. Meg and Hawk are fantastic and I enjoyed all of the things that I learned while reading this book. This is the first book that I have read by this author and I am looking forward to reading the other books in this series as well as her other books.
Storm Rising is the second book in the FBI K9 series by Sara Driscoll that I have read and enjoyed. Sara Driscoll is the pen name used by writers Jen J. Danna and Ann Vanderlaan, authors of the Abbott and Lowell Forensic Mysteries. I first encountered Meg Jennings and her FBI K9 partner, Hawk, in Lone Wolf. Like with all excellent series, the main character appears in each new volume in the series. In this series they are Meg, her sister Cara, McCord, the reporter and Cara’s new love interest and Todd Webb, Meg’s new love interest, along with Meg and Cara’s parents.
Storm Rising begins when Meg and Hawk, members of the FBI’s elite search and rescue division are assigned to help in helping find and recover victims of a hurricane. During this assignment, they stumble across a human trafficking operation and team up with the local SAC of the Norfolk Office, Van Cleaf, to find out who’s behind the operation and take them down hard. Although it’s not her area of expertise, it’s Meg, with the help of her sister, McCord and Webb that put all the clues together and figure out how the ring operates which allows SAC Van Cleaf to get the warrants they need to break the case.
How did she do that? Who were the masterminds behind the human trafficking ring? Well… you’ll have to read the book for yourself to find out. One word of warning, don’t start reading this book unless you have the time to finish it because once you start it, you won’t be able to put it down. It’s a roller coaster thrill ride! A page burner!
The sections focusing on the Lab named Hawk were the best.
Love this series. Interesting story!
When a hurricane hits Virginia Beach with full force, FBI Agent and her K-9 partner Hawk are sent with their Search and Rescue Team to help find survivors. Meg, Hawk and a fireman friend find a half-submerged van in a raging creek. Very young girls are found dead in shackles. Some empty shackles has Hawk searching the area and finding Emma who managed to get away. Meg finds herself in the middle of a large ring of human trafficking and even more criminal activities. With FBI agent Walter Van Cleave they try to find the source of the activity and shut it down. Fast-Moving with plenty of action. There is profanity.
An excellent portrayal of the amazing work of search and rescue K-9 teems. Delightful characters both human and canine. Lots of action, danger, and extraordinary bravery.
Good story, but not the best writing. Somewhat simple and predictable.
Really liked this book. Great characters. Some heat wrenching situations but the good guys win.
It was ok . not one that I couldn’t put down but one that I finished and enjoyed.
I learned a lot about search and rescue operations in this book. The fact that action takes place in the Virginia Beach area where I used to live is a bonus.