No
Man’s Land by
Sara Driscoll has a unique plot. A suspenseful mystery, whose
main characters include K-9 dog teams, brings the characters
to life. For first time readers, Driscoll is the pen name
for Jen J. Danna and Ann Vanderlaan, who also wrote the Abbott
and Lowell Forensic Mysteries.
The story begins with Meg Jennings and her K-9 companion,
Hawk, exploring the ruins of a deserted building to sharpen
their skills without the life-or-death stakes they face as
part of the FBI’s Human Scent Evidence Team. While searching,
Hawk finds the body of an older woman. The victim was left
to die alone and unable to save herself. Through the investigation,
they discover there is a spree of such killings where the
elderly is left at urbex sites to die. Meg and her team must
find the particularly cruel culprit, first kidnapping them,
and then leaving them to die alone in a decaying and scary
structure.
“Hawk is based on a dog I had as a child. He is loyal,
driven, and goal oriented. He was rescued by Meg as a puppy.
She was a canine officer who lost her partner, a German Shepherd
while bringing down a suspect. To recuperate she went back
to her parents and found a black lab puppy that had contracted
the parvo virus. Meg helped nurse the puppy back to health
and trained her to be a rescue dog. She is a dog lover But
in her professional life can be stubborn, loyal, takes on
more than she should, and is a straight-shooter.”
Interestingly, the writers put the vocabulary pertaining to
the plot at the beginning of each chapter. In this installment,
urbex or urban exploration is an activity that people do to
observe condemned sites that are left to deteriorate on their
own.
“Many years ago, I stumbled upon a website called Opacity
that has photographs of abandoned places. Tom Kirsch runs
it and takes fabulous pictures. I was impressed by his ability
to create an atmosphere with his photography as well as the
range of locations and type of structures. It is not an exploration
of nature, but of urban sites. We realized that urban exploration
would provide interesting, challenging, and dangerous search
locations for the K-9 teams. The title of the book comes from
the space between the fence and the building.”
The cast of characters teaming up with Meg are her sister
Cara, who is a dog trainer and yoga instructor, Cara’s
boyfriend Clay McCord, who is a journalist with connections
and research skills, Chuck Smaill who helps find the best
urbex sites to search, Meg's boyfriend and EMS firefighter
Todd Webb, and the rest of the search/rescue dogs: Blink,
Saki, Coy, and Lacey.
This interesting premise has an endlessly captivating subject
matter. Strong, confident, and likeable characters work together
to help unmask danger and murder.
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