"Storm Rising"

Sara Driscoll is the joint pseudonym of Jen J. Danna and Ann Vanderlaan.

They applied the Page 69 Test to Storm Rising, the third book in their FBI K-9s mysteries series--starring search-and-resuce team Meg Jennings and her black lab, Hawk--and reported the following:

From page 69:

Sunday, July 23, 6:27 AM
I-64
Chesapeake, Virginia

Webb whistled along with the radio while he stared out the window as the countryside flashed by. When they drove away from the coast, they left the worst of the devastation behind them, so while this inland portion of the county showed the lashings of a powerful storm, it had suffered significantly less flooding. Now the eerily denuded trees gave glimpses of the white statuary of the Roosevelt Memorial Park cemetery through Webb’s window.

Meg slid him a dark, sideways glance. “You seem pretty chipper.”

“It’s a beautiful day. I enjoyed a cozy night with a beautiful woman in my ... uh ... bed”—Webb playfully waggled his eyebrows at her, cheerfully exaggerating a too short interlude that involved nothing more than unconsciousness—“and I’m headed out to do some good in the world. Why not be chipper?”

Page 69 of Storm Rising is a brief period of ease for FBI K-9 handler Meg Jennings and Washington DC Fire and Emergency Services Lieutenant Todd Webb on the morning following a horrific day rescuing victims—both living and dead—from the devastation of a catastrophic hurricane in Virginia. This moment is a short respite for the weary first responders just before they stumble on several new victims and become entangled in the horrific world of juvenile sex trafficking.

Storm Rising takes Meg and her search-and-rescue black Lab, Hawk, into the heart of a community devastated by a Category Three hurricane. While Todd and his fellow paramedics struggle to move stranded hospital patients to safety, Meg and the rest of the FBI’s Human Scent Evidence Team go in search of the missing and the lost, trying to find those who didn’t, or couldn’t, get out of the path of a killer storm. But it’s Meg and Todd’s discovery of victimized children that directs their path for the rest of the tale. When the ever-deepening layers of the trafficking ring point to some of the community’s most prominent leaders, it will take all the team’s efforts to bring down the powerful and save the helpless.

Learn more about Storm Rising: An FBI K-9 Novel.

Coffee with a Canine: M. Ann Vanderlaan & her dogs.

--Marshal Zeringue