The Darkest Night

"The Darkest Night" is the first Kaycee Miller suspense novel by Jodie Larsen. People are vanishing from America's national parks, and as the numbers climb, investigators race to find a thread connecting the missing. Kaycee Miller and Max Masterson — handlers in a certified Search and Rescue K-9 team — push into backcountry that has already swallowed others, and into a case that goes deeper than a string of bad-luck disappearances.

Larsen leans on the procedural fundamentals: an SAR team that actually works the way real SAR teams work, a dog partnership that earns its place in the plot, and a National Park Service setting that uses the wilderness as both backdrop and antagonist. Readers of Nevada Barr's Anna Pigeon series, C. J. Box's Joe Pickett, and Margaret Mizushima's Timber Creek K-9 mysteries will recognize the territory and the tone.

The pacing favors clue-by-clue tension over high body-count thriller mechanics. Kaycee's first-person voice carries the book; the dog work is researched rather than romanticized. Romance readers and pure-thriller readers both find a foothold, and the series setup leaves room for return visits without ending on a cliffhanger.

Search-friendly notes: "the darkest night jodie larsen review," "kaycee miller suspense series," "national park mystery novels," "search and rescue k-9 thrillers," "is the darkest night worth reading." A solid choice for fans of wilderness-procedural mysteries.