My New Favorite in This Series!

I loved Summit’s Edge, the latest in Sara Driscoll’s FBI K-9 series! It far exceeds my expectations. The primary characters are a close-knit family, highly engaging, passionate about their work, and loyal to those in their lives. Descriptions are so clear that I can almost see everything, but this time I am happy to have been only an armchair traveler!

Meg, Brian, and their K-9s are often teamed together in searches. They work together as one, and their dogs will, when necessary, act on commands from either handler. Meg and Brian have each other’s back; likewise, they and their dogs have each other’s back. Meg’s dog is Hawk, a black labrador. Brian has Lacey, his German shepherd. They have far more grit than they think and adore their dogs. Hawk and Lacey work very well together, and adore their handlers and work. Meg and Brian work for Craig, SAC of the FBI Human Scent Evidence Team. They can be sent anywhere in the country at any time of day or night that requires their talents.

Barron Pharmaceuticals has a luxury jet that company officers travel in frequently. The father and son, Kenneth and Eli Barron, were passengers with their board members and an administrative assistant. They are going to Napa for their annual board meeting. Shortly after takeoff, the flight assistant called to report that the jet had just been hijacked by one of the security guards and one person had been killed so far. There was no indication of the plane anywhere on radar, and a crash is thought to have been heard. The plane and survivors, if any, must be found.

In May, the mountains of Colorado can have snow and be extremely cold, so Brian and Meg grabbed clothing layers and special snacks for themselves and their dogs. The altitude in the Elk Mountains could reach 14,000 feet, necessitating special medications to avoid altitude sickness that could put them out of commission. Meg has one personal struggle that could cause her distress in this search. Brian is the only person at the FBI aware of it, and he always does what he can to encourage her.

The wedding of Meg and her fiancé, Todd, a firefighter and paramedic in DC, is less than two weeks away, and Craig promised to have them back on time. Brian, ordained on-line, is looking forward to conducting their wedding ceremony.

Upon arrival, Meg and Brian were accompanied by Stacey and Corey from the local FBI office and Hensley and Fife, two men from Mountain Rescue Aspen, one of whom has extensive experience in the area. Heavy cloud cover and high winds have prevented any kind of aerial search.

This deployment takes Meg and Brian through experiences I didn’t envy! It was hard to close my eyes to the scenes and still read while they were lowered down a steep slope, each with their respective dog, on a rope! What they did to locate the plane, help survivors, then follow the scents of the killer/ hijacker and the passenger determined to get revenge was remarkable! You won’t want to miss a word of this tale! I was very satisfied with the entire novel, especially the ending and resolutions! I very highly recommend this and all of this series, which is one of my favorites. Those who appreciate breathtaking views and adventures, K-9 search and rescues, and the very best of friends and family will want to savor each one!

From a thankful heart: I read and based my review on a pre-publication copy as provided by Kensington via NetGalley. A hearty thanks to each!

Suspenseful thriller that kept me on the edge of my seat…

This is the second novel I’ve read by this author and it packed the same punch as the first. From the opening pages, the author surrounded me in a plot that had lots of balls in the air and interesting, insightful characters to catch them.

Set in the rugged mountains of Colorado, mountain climbing/hiking was a major focus and I thought I might be lost in the technical aspects of it all. Instead, each element was explained in a way that was easy and familiar and kept me interest throughout. The tension of the pursuit, the challenges they faced, made the warm and engaging characters even more so. The bond between human and canine was striking and helped to make this a favourite read of the year.

I believe this is the last book in this series and I can’t wait to go back to the beginning and find out more about Meg and Hawk and the entire team… I know there are many adventures to discover…

Meg, Hawk and the rest of this amazing cast of characters are back and better than ever! This case was so intense and kept me on edge. My heart pounded through some of the scenes. This is my favorite procedural series featuring K9s. And that ending was perfect!

This was a "heart in your mouth" kind of adventure, all the way!

Meg and Hawk are called out, along with Brian and Lacey, to locate the man who hijacked a private plane, and the man who is pursuit of him - on a high, scary mountain where every step could be your last.

Lots of suspense in this one and, once again, the dogs steal my heart :) There are also some lovely things going on for the humans but I won't give away the surprise!

One of the things I really love about the series is the relationships that Meg has with her dog, with Brian, her fiance, her sister and her parents. It is really wholesome, which is very much appreciated by this reader.

5 stars from me and I am looking forward, already, to the next book in the series!

Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington Books.

What a complete rush from the very beginning to the thrilling end! Meg Jennings is planning her upcoming wedding to the love of her life, Todd Webb. When she and her K9 Hawk, along with her FBI Human Scent Evidence partner, Brian Foster and his K9 Lacey are called to an urgent meeting. A plane has crashed in the Nevada mountains and they will be needed to search for the crash site and possibly the hijacker if they survived. Was the entire board of Barron Pharmaceuticals, who were on the flight, targeted and if so, why? As they prepare for harsh conditions, as well as unfamiliar terrain, they meet up with their contacts from the Denver FBI office. Along with assistance from Mountain Rescue Aspen, a volunteer group who live near and have hiked the mountains they will be climbing. Once they find the crash site, they will need to assist the survivors, with the SAT phone help of her fiancé who is with DC Fire & Emergency Medical Services. With the hijacker on the run, they along with their dogs begin the search to stop him. Will she do what she must do to stop the killer and make it home in time for her wedding? WOW! I received an advance review copy at no cost and without obligation for an honest review. (paytonpuppy)

Immersed. Like many of the books in this series you are feel like your there, present in every situation. Its been fascinating watching Meg grow and still deal with her issues and vulnerabilities. Hawk her K-9 who is her partner and companion. Brian her human partner ( love his wit and sarcasm) and his K9 Lacey go to Denver - just days before Meg's upcoming wedding to Todd who is a firefighter and ems. There are moments of catching your breath and oh no, they wouldn't do that would they. This was a fascinating, well thought out plot that entertained and informed. The ending put a smile on my face. Thank you for the advanced copy. I freely share my honest thoughts and opinions.. Summit'sEdge #AFBIK9 #SaraDriscoll #Kensington #NetGalley

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Nail biting will happen while reading this book. Meg and her K-9, Hawk, and the rest of their crew are used to battling adversaries, but danger takes on a whole new meaning in this fantastic story.

Meg, Hawk, Brian and Lacey are called in to assist after a private plane owned by Barron Pharmaceuticals is hijacked and goes down in the Elk Mountains in Colorado. There is hope that there will be survivors, which is why their unit has been called into assist. Conditions will not allow any kind of air support, so they will have to go in on foot. Tedious, scary and dangerous do not even begin to describe this trek.

There are some scary and tense moments as they trek up the side of this mountain. Some heroes do not wear capes, but they definitely deserve the title of hero, which is what these guys, gals and dogs are. With extremely rough terrain, the possibility of avalanches, illness and any other kind of danger you can think of, plus they have no idea if there is an armed hijacker on the run, the stakes are high and the days are long and cold.

The sheer amount of information the author provided as she told the story was interesting in and of itself, even without the mystery. It made me tired just reading about their adventure. To add to the stress, Meg is getting married in two weeks. Talk about a mental overload. However, Meg is dedicated to her job in hopes of finding survivors, so she puts it out of her mind.

The cast of characters are always interesting in this series, and the mystery written into this one was interesting to say the least. I always feel a little smarter after reading about the adventures of this crew. Dog lovers and mystery lovers will enjoy this book, even if you may grind your teeth while reading it.

Thank you to Kensington Books and NetGalley for this ARC. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Meg Jennings and Hawk (K-9), and Brian Foster with Lacey (K-9) are heading to the mountains. Not for fun, Meg would never choose to do heights, but a corporate plane crashed in the Elk Mountains of Colorado. Right before the plane disappeared from the screens a call was made from the plane that there was a gunman on board.
This will be either a rescue mission or a body retrieval mission, and danger is in more than one way – high altitude sickness, weather, facing a gunman that survived, and the fear of heights.
I love reading this series, it always surprises me how much I learn (I do searches while reading as the it is so cool to learn something and read some more about it)
You can totally read this book on its own but I would suggest you read the all.

SUMMITS EDGE is the ninth book in the FBI K-9 novels by Sara Driscoll. While I haven’t read any previous books in the series, this was easy to jump in and read as a standalone… and whet my appetite to go back and read more stories about this FBI K-9 duo! From the very start, it’s obvious that the author has done extensive research on rescue missions on treacherous mountains. She starts each chapter with a mountaineering term explanation, which brings added value. Her attention to detail makes the reader feel like they’re right there, gasping for breath in the low oxygen altitudes, or feeling the icy bite of the treacherous winds on the snow-packed peaks. But what drew me in and held my attention was the relationship between FBI Human Scent Evidence team partners Meg Jennings and Brian Foster and their dogs, Hawk and Lacey. The ability of the dogs is truly remarkable and the love and respect the canines and their humans have for each other is heartwarming. The character development and realistic setting are top-notch, but the star of the show is the heart-stopping rescue mission of the victims of a hijacking and plane crash, and the tracking of a murderer, all under treacherous conditions. With a fast pace that kept me engaged, I couldn’t put the book down until I’d read to the very end. If you enjoy tense, suspenseful books with a strong female protagonist and DOGS, do yourself a favor and read this one!

I was provided with an advance copy. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

An armed hijacker, 14,000 foot peaks covered with loose scree, the possibility of high-altitude sickness and a wedding only two weeks away all make this latest Meg and Hawk a high-tension page-turner. Climbing definitions starting each chapter add to the fascinating details of a springtime high altitude mountain search. I liked learning about avalanche survival, how to cross the remains of an avalanche, the classes of climbing , and how to belay a dog. Relationships shine, whether human to human or to dog. Driscoll is at the top of her game and this can be read on its own. Highly recommended.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an eARC. All opinions expressed are my own.

I found the journey to get to the plane wreck a bit boring but otherwise I enjoyied the story and the characters.

The team is looking for a downed plane that was hijacked - all the makings of an exciting adventure. But Instead the majority of this story is a how-to on climbing: dealing with altitude, finding proper handholds, walking on scree, etc. I haven't read the other books in the series, and there are a ton of throwbacks to what I assume happened in those novels.

This was an okay read for me. I would have preferred more story and less climbing manual.

Not family friendly due to profanity and adult themes.

This FBI, K-9 series never gets boring. There is always something new to send the teams on to search for answers, victims, and/or bad people. Meg and Todd are getting married in twelve days. But then a corporate plane goes down in the mountains around Aspen, Colorado with reports of a gunshot onboard before the plane went down. The FBI is involved because of the shooting. So, Meg and her K-9 partner, Hawk, along with her partner Brian, and his K-9 partner Lacey are off to join the search. What a wild ride! The team has to deal with a mountain of 13,000 feet, altitude issues and the chance of avalanches. The exact location is not known nor if anyone survived. This is an excruciating, dangerous, tiring, and tense time for the search crews. Can Meg and the group get back in time for her wedding? Great addition to the series.
I received a copy for the purpose of an honest review. These are my thoughts.

I really enjoyed reading Summit's Edge by Sara Driscoll. The story flowed well, with quick pacing and a very interesting setting in the high mountains. As usual, I learned something new and enjoyed the interactions between characters. It held my interest throughout and had a very satisfactory ending. I look forward to the next book in the series.

This review was originally posted on Books of My Heart


Review copy was received from NetGalley. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

The FBI K-9 series is one of the better ones for realistic work where the dogs are key in the story and do actual training and work. There is the police work the characters are doing with the dogs. The personal relationship of the teams, their friends and family is well developed.

Our team is sent to search for a crashed corporate plane. A flight attendant calls in to say a hijacker has shot someone on the plane. The crash is in the Colorado Rockies, north of Colorado Springs. The mountains there are very high and can be treacherous. Plus the cold weather can cause a variety of issues. When Meg is packing, her fiancé Todd brings up altitude illness. It's another big factor for the search teams to manage.

Most of the story is the hard effort of covering lots of difficult terrain to find the crashed plane. Shockingly, there are survivors in various conditions. After only a couple hours of sleep, Meg and Brian, along with more local FBI folks are off to search for the hijacker who took off after the crash. Fighting weather, landscapes including avalanche, exhaustion, the team does their job. They get some information support from their journalist friend McCord who researches the hijacker's real identity.

Summit's Edge was tense in a different way than some earlier books. For one thing, they found the plane crash somewhat quickly. While the search area was huge, the plane wasn't moving. The second part was tracking down the hijacker to bring him to justice. He needed to be caught before he left the area.

I always enjoy K-9 stories so much. The ending is a nice personal scene for the characters.

Summits edge.
Sara Driscoll

This one kept me on the Edge. The whole time. A rescue deep in the mountains in Colorado. A highjacker, a down plane.

I simply love this series. The Dogs have my heart. ❤️ I love books with dogs.

So so intense. Loved every minute of this book. Have read several books by this author each are unique in its own way. Simply perfect story's.

Get ready for a bumpy intense ride.
A definite page turner.

Summit’s Edge by Jen J. Danna writing as Sara Driscoll is the fascinating and suspenseful ninth book in the FBI K-9 crime thriller series. The book features Meg Jennings and her Labrador K-9 partner Hawk. They’re civilian employees of the FBI’s Human Scent Evidence Response Team.

Meg and her human partner on the team, Brian Foster are called into Special Agent-in-Charge Craig Beaumont’s office. Meg, Hawk, Brian, and Brian’s K-9 partner Lacey are being deployed to Colorado where a hijacked plane has gone down somewhere in the Elk Mountains of Colorado near Aspen. The plan carried the board of directors of Barron Pharmaceuticals, two security guards, a junior assistant and three crew members. Has anyone survived? Exactly where is the plane? What is the status of the hijacker and who is he and why did he do it?

Meg is compassionate, friendly, wants to help others, and has a keen sense of justice. She also has a fear of heights that she must overcome on some sites. Climbing a mountain is not going to be easy for her. Hawk loves the rescue life. He’s steadfast, determined, and full of drive. He also loves and trusts Meg as she does him. There’s an array of characters from prior books that help with continuity and a sense of visiting friends.

Dynamic characters and fantastic world-building combined with a great plot, intense scenes, and excellent pacing are a standard expectation with this author. She has once again delivered that in this excellent and intense search and rescue deployment novel.

Reading a novel in this series is also a learning experience. Once again, the author provides a definition of an aspect related to the novel’s plot at the beginning of each chapter. In this case, the terms are mountain climbing related. She also details the preparations needed for a mountain rescue, the intensity of the search, the first responders’ actions upon finding the crash site, and the search for the hijacker. Risks abound for the searchers, including Hawk and Lacey, with parts of the mountainous route rated class three and four on a scale from one to five.

The author’s writing style continues to hook me quickly. The prose is well-written and engaging. Readers can tell she did a lot of research to get the details right regarding the dangers and process of mountain search and rescue. I was transported to the dangerous scene and felt as if I was living the events alongside the characters. This is an intense novel and reminds readers of the situations these mountain rescue teams can encounter. The atmosphere is tense and serious throughout most of the novel and it has more technical details than usual in this type of book without slowing the pace. I loved the ending epilogue.

Overall, this tense, engaging, suspenseful, and tragic mystery gripped me from the beginning. It was difficult to put down. I’m a fan of the series and looking forward to reading the next book.

Kensington Books and Sara Driscoll provided a complimentary digital ARC of this novel via NetGalley. All opinions expressed in this review are my own. The publication date is currently set for November 26, 2024. This review was originally posted at Mystery and Suspense Magazine.

A page turner! With less than two weeks to go until her wedding, Meg and Hawk are tapped to travel to Colorado to search for the hijacker of a private plane which crashed in the mountains. But first they have to find the plane! Alongside her partner Brian and his dog Lacey, they head off into the wilderness with two FBI SAs and two search and rescue experts. And wow what a trip it is. You will feel the cold, the altitude, the stress Meg, Brian, and the others feel. I can't imagine making this climb in the light much less in the dark! Know that the mystery is less fleshed out and less important than the search (which was ok by me). Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. A very good read. I'm looking forward to seeing what comes next in Meg's life.

This is the 9th book in the FBI K-9 series, but it is the first I have read and it didn’t impede my enjoyment at all. It did reference a couple of previous cases but I feel like I would still enjoy those if I were to pick them up. I listened to the audiobook for about the first half of this one before switching to kindle and binging the rest. I thought the narrator did a good job, her voice may have been a little flat it really fit the focused nature of the main character. This book takes us to a plane crash in the mountains and Meg and her partner Brian (one of my only complaints of the narration is that her saying Brian and his partner Ryan’s names sounded the same and was confusing) and their search dogs are sent to Colorado to help find survivors but also the high jacket of a private airplane. This isn’t the kind of search they’re used to, but they are sure that they and their pups are up for the challenge. I liked the glimpse at these smart, sweet working dogs and the important work they do that humans can't match. Overall I gave this one 4.5 stars rounded up since I was starting the series late and that might have kept me from becoming fully lost in the story.

As a reader you never know ahead of time what kind of tragedy Meg and Hawk (And Brian and Lacey) will be facing and when and in this outing two weeks before she’s to walk down the aisle the teams are faced with yet another horrifying (and deeply terrifying to Meg) case when a hijacked private plane crashes into the mountains. Facing challenges they’d never prepared for is almost as dangerous as hunting for the hijacker and survivors in this unfamiliar wilderness. Riveting from beginning to end, I as always, highly recommend any of Sara Driscoll’s work!