cover image Under Pressure

Under Pressure

Sara Driscoll. Kensington, $26 (304p) ISBN 978-1-4967-3504-1

In Driscoll’s straightforward sixth FBI K9 mystery (after 2020’s Leave No Trace), the FBI assigns two agents and their canines who ordinarily do search and rescue—Meg Jennings and her dog, Hawk, and Meg’s partner, Brian Foster, and his dog, Lacey—to a case involving blood diamonds (“Diamonds mined and sold to finance a war or a warlord”). The FBI has an undercover agent, Finn Pierce, planted inside the Philadelphia Mafia, but Finn is having trouble busting the mobsters selling the diamonds because the transactions happen so fast. The plan is for Meg and Brian, posing as dog walkers, to follow the undercover agent with Hawk and Lacey to the locations where the sales are taking place and arrest the crooks in the act. They make several attempts that come close, but not close enough. The stakes rise when the Mafia comes after Meg in her home—and it turns out there are more than the gems involved. At times, too much information about blood diamonds and the Mafia slows the pace. Those looking for a simple, clean story will be satisfied. Agent: Nicole Resciniti, Seymour Agency. (Dec.)