Storm Rising, the third book in the FBI K-9 series by Sara Driscoll, once again propels Meg and Hawk, et al. on a nonstop suspenseful thriller of a ride that causes your heart to race on two separate but related fronts. While rescuing victims of a hurricane that left unimaginable devastation Meg stumbles upon a human trafficking ring that breaks your heart with its realism of the victims’ suffrage.

This series just continues to build upon itself to further create a vested interest in the characters and the story that realistically brings them to life.

This ARC book was complimentary, provided by the Publisher and NetGalley. I am voluntarily submitting my honest review.

Thanks very much to the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this title. Many thanks, Dave

Storm Rising is number three in the FBI K-9 series. Even though this book can be read as a standalone, the relationships of all the main characters continues to grow and develop with each book, so I recommend reading them in order. Special Agent Meg Jennings and her Labrador, Hawk along with other members of the FBI’s Human Scent Evidence Team, have been deployed to Virginia Beach in the midst of a hurricane. They are able to find people trapped in their homes, sometimes to rescue them, other times to recover bodies. When they find a van in the Great Dismal Swamp, along with some dead teenagers handcuffed inside they realize a couple of people have escaped. With Hawk finding two girls who are scared and injured, they realize that they have stumbled upon a sex trafficking operation. The leader has escaped, but Meg does not want to just turn over the investigation to someone else, so she works with Special Agent Walter Van Cleave to uncover a network that includes some powerful men.

Meg continues to be a wonderful protagonist. She is a mentally healthy female protagonist with a strong family support system. So many of our female law enforcement characters have so much baggage that this is nice to see. I like the team of Meg and Hawk along with others who help and support her such as Cara, Webb and McCord. This story takes them down some dark roads and brings them face to face with some very scary and psychopathic characters, those who do not care about human life at all. Hawk is such a great character. In addition to Hawk’s involvement in the search and rescues, it turns out that like most labs, he’s a natural as a therapy dog. He saves the day more than once. This is a well written story with some twists and a lot of tension. There was also a lot of education for me in this story, learning about the training and abilities of all the dogs on this FBI team. Another winning story for me and I am looking forward to see what is next for Meg and Hawk along with their team, friends and family. I have been enjoying the FBI K-9 series by Sara Driscoll.

It took awhile to get back into the rhythm of the story especially the first few chapters. Pretty soon however I was right smack into the middle of high tension befitting a well crafted procedural suspense mystery. There were a lot of secondary characters that were introduced right and this had me confused for awhile which probably contributed to the slowness of the pace of my absorption of the plot. Overall, its still very much a page turning suspense thriller.

It was good to catchup with Meg and Hawk again. In this novel they, along with the rest of the team are sent to help and find survivors from a hurricane. But they find more than they bargained for.

Living in a country where we don’t experience extreme weather I found this part of the storyline fascinating. I see it on the news but this novel showed how the rescuers feel and cope with what they see and hear. I have never given a moments thought to what a dog may go through, not finding any survivors and felt quite strange at how their handlers deal with the situation. I was almost reluctant to leave this side of the story and move onto the part that concerned Emma.

Emma, despite what she has been put through is tough and decides that she wants justice. But she is still vulnerable and I loved the way that she and Hawk bonded. It was hard to think about what her early life was like when she had no desire to return to it.

This series is very different to all the others that I read. The cases all feature heavily but so do the team members. You see their personal lives, how they deal with the job and how close they are to their canine partners. You see how important their families are to them, Meg’s sister, their parents and their partners all feature without over powering the storyline.

Woohoo! Set in Virginia Beach, the reader is thrust on a wild ride facing loss, a search for the truth, relationships, survival, child exploitation/trafficking and a need for justice.
Wow! Wow! Wow! This is the third book in the series – I have read and loved both the previous books Lone Wolf and Before It’s Too Late so I jumped at the chance to read this #badboy! A slow build up, adds to the suspense of this novel as you just have no clue what will be happening. Poor Meg and Hawk are sent on a rescue mission to deal with the fall-out of Hurricane Cole but they stumble upon two bodies of young girls which opens a pandora’s box into the seedy underworld of child exploitation/trafficking. In a race against time and the elements, Meg works with Van Cleave to find a missing girl and bring their captor to justice. I loved the plot of this story – and the authors really do know their stuff when it comes to K9 search & rescue as well as everything else! I personally enjoyed the opening of each chapter which explained certain techniques or rules – I am a knowledge seeker and this just made me squeal with delight!
Character-wise, I have to say the mention of Deuce did choke me up a bit as we know how much Meg LOVED Deuce. Those who haven’t read the series, may not understand this fully, but you definitely feel the emotion whenever Deuce is mentioned and credit to the authors for giving readers just enough information to catch up on the previous stories without leaving those who have read the books overwhelmed. It had been awhile, so the refresher worked perfectly for me. In fact, I loved every character in this novel- I was thrilled that Cara and McCord had their part – I have a soft spot for McCord and had originally hoped he and Meg would hit it off (ha ha) but equally glad that her sister has found her match. Love, Love, Love Clay and we see things develop further on this front too. And Van Cleave was the typical G-man – in it to catch the bad guy, down-to-earth and determined – I had wavered when we first met him, but glad it was just me! And I have to mention Emma – strong-willed and vulnerable, she has been through hell and back – I just wanted to wrap her up. So well written!
In a nutshell, would I recommend this book? Oh that would be an absolute HELL YEAH from me. I simply adore this series! BOOM! – Thrilling, fascinating and absolutely unputdownable – I raced through the pages of this superb read! #GottaLoveHawk – he is one of my favourite characters as the authors bring him to life with such a realism, every time something places him at risk, my heart leaps into my throat! Can’t wait to see what happens next!

Storm Rising
by Sara Driscoll
Kensington Books
Kensington
Mystery & Thrillers
Pub Date 27 Nov 2018

I am reviewing a copy of Storm Rising through Kensington Books and Netgalley:


Just after a devastating hurricane FBI Special Agent Meg Jennings and her Labador, Hawk a valuable member of the FBI’s Human Scrnt FBI Team. They were deployed to Virginia Beach in the wake of the hurricane. They have their work cut out for them searching for victims of the hurricane who need rescuing but they are most shocked by the teenage girl they find frightened and hiding in the dismal swamp. They soon learn that the girl is scared of far more than the hurricane.


They learn the disheveled run away is named Emma that she had been lost to the underbelly of a sex trafficking ring and that her trafficker along with other victims have disappeared into the Chaos. After so much evidence and so many witnesses have seem been washed away by the storm. Meg joins forces with Special Agent Walter Van Cleave to protect Emma from any farther harm. It doesn’t take time for them to realize that this ring is no small syndicate. The branches are rooted in some of the most influential people and powers in Virgina. As Meg’s investigation goes deeper she finds herself making some dangerous enemies. One by one they are coming to stop her. Can she stop them before they get to her?


I give Storm Rising five out of five stars!


Happy Reading!

I loved this book! Those four words sum up my entire review - so I don't really need to write anything else! But I will.

Storm Rising focuses on the devastating impact of floods following a hurricane and the discovery of a sex-trafficking ring involving young teenage girls. It's well researched (as always), with plenty of background into the K-9 search-and-rescue team and also disaster management. The book includes some interesting facts at the start of each chapter. This is great for me, as I love to learn something new when I read.

Storm Rising is well written and well plotted - I whizzed through it fairly quickly - with an amazing sense of place, thanks to the vivid descriptions of the floods. It kept me interested and entertained all the way through. The topic is very timely, with US floods (and also fires) in the media spotlight. The book highlights the impact of natural disasters on everyone involved, from those who lose their homes to those responding in an emergency.

Meg is a brilliant main character - although I think Hawk the dog is really the one in the limelight in this series. You could easily read this book as a standalone, but I would suggest you read the previous two books as well, to build up the characters and the dynamics between them.

I have to say that I think that this series is getting better and better, as it goes on!

Meg is at an aftermath of a hurricane with her search and rescue dog, Hawk, when she stumbles upon a van, caught in the water. What she discovers within will shake her up and it will take all her reserves of strength and determination to see the job through, once she starts it. Luckily for her, her boyfriend Todd is on hand, as well as her fellow K-9 handlers, for support, both mental and practical.

I really enjoyed this book, and getting to know Meg's friends and boyfriend a little better was part of the joy of the read. Of course, the case that Meg becomes involved with is quite shocking, and it helps if you have a bit of a strong stomach! I think it is fascinating, what search and rescue people (and animals) do, and I am grateful they put their lives on the line for us, when things go wrong.

I give this book 4.5 stars and I am already looking forward to reading the next one!

Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington Books.

Third in the series about an FBI agent and her K-9 partner, I wouldn’t recommend starting with Storm Rising if you haven’t read the other two. On the other hand, if you have read the other two, the first couple of chapters of this one are going to come across as pure infodump of stuff you already know, which may annoy you.

After the first couple of chapters is when stuff starts to get interesting, though I have to say the plot still takes too long to get going. Driscoll spends too much time setting up her protagonist getting into the situation to uncover a human trafficking ring, and there aren’t too many points where Meg herself is in any peril (apart from a rather bizarre scene with an alligator) which makes it hard for the reader to really feel any suspense in the story.

There were parts of the story I really enjoyed, and it’s obvious the author really knows her stuff when it comes to both disaster management scenarios and K-9 handling. Unfortunately, the book overall kind of falls in between two genres while not fitting into either; there’s not enough romance for it to be a romantic suspense, and there’s not enough ‘thrill’ for it to be a thriller. Meg doesn’t seem to be personally engaged in any way apart from her righteous outrage as a law enforcement officer investigating a heinous crime, in fact she actively tries to get out of being involved and is basically pressured into it by a senior officer.

This is a hard one to rate because it had good parts and yet there were a fair few issues; at the end of the day I’d probably read other books by this author but I’d hope for them to be better than this one. Three stars.

Brought to you by OBS Reviewer Jeanie

There are not enough adjectives to describe how much I like this novel! It is 3rd in the FBI K-9 series, and the best to date. When Meg and Hawk are out on a search and rescue mission in the aftermath of a hurricane, they come upon a different kind of search and rescue. The change in Meg’s duties makes this a fabulous, heart-rending, satisfying thriller, with a ripped-from-the-headlines feel for two overwhelming challenges in our country today.

FBI Special Agent Meg Jennings and her K-9 partner, Hawk, are deployed to Virginia Beach in the wake of Hurricane Cole’s destruction on the Atlantic coast. While she and other members of her team hope this is truly a search and rescue mission, it turns into a part rescue, part recovery. Her firefighter and paramedic boyfriend Todd is deployed to help the short-handed paramedic crews. Her sister Cara is dating Washington Post investigative journalist Clay McCord; he is already in North Carolina following the hurricane. Cara remains at home, feeling as if she isn’t contributing to the rescues, but she is caring for her dog and Todd’s as well as helping owners train their dogs.

After navigating the wreckage that includes fires, homes washed away, and power outages, the team Meg is on is sent to Norfolk and Chesapeake. Todd is riding shotgun with her as he will aid the firefighters there. In route, Todd sees a van caught up in the Elizabeth River, tossed on its side and partially submerged. What she sees when she gets into the van begins the rage and horror that fuels her work for the next several days. It appears to have been a sex trafficker’s van. Two young girls died, strapped in and unable to free themselves from wristbands to help each other. One wristband is broken, several others empty; Meg assumes that at least one if not several girls are out on the run.

The girls that Hawk leads Meg to, and the horrifying stories Emma tells after rescue from the Great Dismal Swamp, lead her into a world that she wished didn’t exist. But it does – and she is temporarily under the leadership of Special Agent in Charge Walter Van Cleave, who has worked human trafficking cases for nearly a decade without losing heart for those in need. Emma receives comfort from Hawk and builds a rapport with Meg. As a result, she will help the FBI take down the people in charge of the trafficking ring, but only if Meg and Hawk stay with her through interviews. Meg learns more than she wanted to know about trafficking, especially of pre-teens and young teens. She and Van Cleave find the assistance of Clay and his many contacts in this ugly quagmire invaluable if they give him an exclusive story when the case is brought to fruition, as he and Meg have worked before. Todd also proves to be a valuable member of the team that includes Hawk, Meg’s second heart dog, and Cara, whose ability to solve complex puzzles is a priceless asset. The challenges they face includes a group of influential men in the area who just might not be who they seem, yet finding the top of the pyramid is a challenge they might not meet in time to prosecute the little guys on the way.

Meg is the most three-dimensional of the novel; I enjoy getting to know her more in each book. She is a strong, courageous woman who can feel the fury of injustices and have empathy for the victims she and Hawk find. When receiving accolades, she is humble enough to deflect them to Hawk as being the real hero. I think she has a winning match with Todd; while we continue to learn about him, his heart is evident throughout. Cara’s appearances are few but mighty. Journalist Clay McCord is someone well-suited to Cara. Their love for dogs and his work with Meg on other cases brought Cara and Clay together, and I look forward to getting to see more of Cara in future novels. We learn a little about Emma throughout the novel, but she has many wounds from her family and the traffickers to heal from. I hope we get to learn more about her, also.

This is a breathtaking, fast-paced novel. The plot is tight and finely-executed with twists that frequently change the course of the investigation. I was invited in from the first page and my attention held throughout. I appreciate that Meg is not a character unaffected by her work; noting that she has a bit of PTSD when hearing and seeing a drone searching out survivors makes her more human. I also appreciate how much the story became so much more than working the aftermath of a hurricane. Not only does it show the many facets of rescue or recovery after a natural disaster, but it shows the needs of the first responders. We see how men, women, and children get trapped in sex and slave labor trafficking and how its perpetrators are in all levels of society. This is very well-written, and it is evident that the author has done extensive research. I highly recommend Storm Rising to everyone who has appreciated this series so far, those who find search and rescue K-9 officers/ agents interesting, and thrillers about the FBI and some of their specialized work. I can’t wait for their next adventure!

*OBS would like to thank the publisher for supplying a free copy of this title in exchange for an honest review*

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

I have been lucky enough to read all three books in this series. These books take the reader on an adventure that few people are able to experience in real life. You find yourself holding your breath as you watch the story unfold. Yet again this is a fantastic adventure that leaves you anxiously awaiting the next adventure.

Love this Search and Rescue series

FBI Special Agent Meg Jennings is back with her SAR dog, Hawk, a black Labrador retriever. They are part of the Forensic Canine Unit’s Human Scent Evidence Team.

This time around they are sent to Virginia Beach, Virginia after the city is devastated by a hurricane. The first couple of days in town they are going house to house, trying to find survivors in the chaos.

But soon they are sidetracked into looking for runaway survivors of a van caught by the hurricane, allowing some of its occupants to escape. What Meg finds is that the survivors are also young survivors of a human trafficking ring. And Meg and another FBI SAC are soon caught up in a conspiracy that reaches higher than either one expected.

I love the characters in this story and especially love the animals that appear frequently throughout the book.

I did think the dialogue at the beginning of the book felt a bit stilted but it wasn't bad enough to lessen my reading enjoyment.

This is the third book in this stellar series and as long as this team of writers keeps writing, I will keep reading.

I received this book from Kensington Books through Net Galley in the hopes that I would read it and leave an unbiased review.

The aftermath of a hurricane is the basis for this tale. It becomes much more than search and rescue. A glimpse of a van in flood waters becomes the first step to reaching a satisfying and surprising conclusion. The story quickly moved along with familiar characters and the new. I look forward to reading the next one in this exciting series.

FBI SA Meg and her dog Hawk didn't expect to cover a human trafficking organization when they deployed to Virginia in the wake of a natural disaster. Emma, who Hawk locates, is battered and has a broken leg but she's strong. Meg teams up with SAC Van to identify, with Emma's help, how this ring operated. As is often the case, it has tentacles through the rich and politically connected. I especially enjoyed the info about canine search and rescue. Meg's family- her boyfriend Todd, along with her Cara and sister Cara's boyfriend Clay- make a good positive team. Thanks to Netgalley for the ArC. This is a well written and engaging novel. Don't worry if you haven't read the first two books in the series; you'll quickly find yourself turning pages in this one and looking forward to the next.

would like to thank netgalley and the publisher for letting me read this amazing book

i love search and rescue with the k-9 dogs..and this story is no different...brilliant written and the storyline flows...

the main character has a rescue dog and after a big storm goes in to literally search and rescue survivors...along the search a van is found with young girls handcuffed unable to escape the rising water,but two get out and the storyline that goes with it shifts from search and rescue to basically finding these young girls and putting the perps behind bars...

loved how the author pulled all the different threads together to bring a very enjoyable book,will be keeping an eye out for more of this authors work

This book is nothing short of amazing. Ms. Driscoll has focused the majority of her story on the social and emotional ramifications of child sex trafficking, and it's a heart-wrenching story. This is a novel torn from today's headlines, making it all the more profound. If you read no other fictional book this year, read this one. You might cry, but it'll be a righteous cry. Great read!

Fast paced mystery story featuring K9 search and rescue.Good characters,especially the dogs. Part of a series so good to catch up,lots more to come i hope..