Summit’s Edge

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.