Before She Disappeared is unlike any other mystery novel I have read. The main character, Frankie Elkin, is not what you may expect from a woman who is on a mission to find missing children. Frankie is not a detective or PI, she is a woman with deep emotional scars that is driven to find those that are missing, and often forgotten by society. She travels from city to city, immersing herself into the communities of the missing, often being one of few (if not the only) white person in the area; her self-proclaimed specialty is finding the missing within the minority communities.

I was immediately drawn into the story by the writing. Lisa Gardner created a well-flawed character with a backstory and personal issues that make her easy to connect to. I thought the use of flashbacks was effective in sharing Frankie’s past, making it easier to understand her thoughts, reasoning, and actions. I felt the characters and story line were all realistic and reflective of current day societal issues. The story is well-written and solidly paced. It’s a storyline you can escape into and wrap yourself in the action, emotion, and suspense of the pages.

While this is a standalone novel, I would love to see another novel (or two) with Frankie. I recommend this to all those who love a good mystery/suspense novel, for anyone who has read Lisa Gardner’s previous novels, for anyone who is new to Lisa Gardner, as well as anyone looking for something with enough grit to entertain. I am giving this book four stars because it’s entertaining, emotional, page-turning, exciting, surprising, and suspenseful.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for sending me an eARC to read in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you to PENGUIN GROUP Dutton for granting my wish and providing an uncorrected e-proof via NetGalley for review.

Lisa Gardner delivers a suspenseful and emotional thrill-ride in Before She Disappeared.

We meet Frankie, an average middle-aged woman and recovering alcoholic, who spends her life moving from place to place in search of missing people whose cases have long gone cold. Throughout the story we see glimpses of Frankie's past (relationships, alcohol abuse, traumas, etc.), that draw her character, and help us understand why she chooses this unsettled life.

Upon arriving in a new city in search of a new missing person, Frankie sets out to discover whatever she can however she can, even if that means angering local detectives, family members, and, in this particular instance, street gangs. The teenage girl she is searching for in Boston is a smart, go-getter, who seems unlikely to be caught up in anything nefarious. We become deeply invested in finding out what happened to her, all while slowly uncovering what happened to Frankie.

There is enough suspense to have you turning pages long past your bedtime, and enough emotion to truly connect you to the protagonist...plus a tiny dash of heat to keep things spicy.

On several occasions, Frankie uncovers details about the case through long, detailed confessions, made by characters who had previously withheld the information from police. Much of the dialogue in these instances, and some others, feels overly expository and unrealistic. While it does a fine job moving the plot along and giving the necessary details, the dialogue in these cases feels a bit inauthentic and out-of-character to me.

This is a small complaint, however, and overall I very much enjoyed the book and would recommend it to any thriller lover, especially those looking for a mystery with slightly more substance and character development.

Happy Pub Day!!
Lisa Gardner never disappoints. In this standalone book, middle-aged, recovering alcoholic Frankie Elkin spends her life searching for missing people after their cases have gone cold.
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Her most recent case focuses on a Haitian teenager. Angelique has gone missing from school and no one has heard from her since. With no help from the police or her family Frankie is on her own. With push back from every corner she may soon find herself as one of the missing people she investigates.
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Pulse racing, thrilling with frantic energy I read this whole book in one sitting. There is something about a thriller that just makes me want to cuddle up with a blanket and read until I’m done and this absolutely did not disappoint.
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Huge thank you to #netgalley and #Dutton for an arc in exchange for an honest opinion.

I loved this book! It's one of the best I've read over the past 12 months. This character driven, unputdownable page-turner will keep you on your toes. Franki Elkin is my new favorite heroine. Socially concious, honest and gritty all wrapped up in story that packs a punch. ⁣
The setting is descriptive and atmospheric and you feel as if you are right there in Boston. A totally addictive read. ⁣
I can't wait for more of Franki!
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#bookstagrammer #bookstagram #lisagardner @lisagardnerbks #bookreview #bookrecommendations #psychologicalsuspense #psychologicalthriller #thrillerbooks #thriller #suspensethrill

In "Before She Disappeared" Frankie Elkin is a recovering alcoholic with an obsessive personality. She has traded her addiction to alcohol for an obsessive need to find missing persons. In most cases, success comes from tracking down a body, but she longs to finally find one of the victims alive. Frankie is not trained as a law enforcement professional, and she acts on instinct and often contrary to any need for self-preservation. This time, Frankie is working a cold case where a brilliant teen has vanished without any leads. Set in a Haitian community in Boston, this book explores how an outsider can make a difference.

Lisa Gardner is one of my favorite authors and I always eagerly anticipate her new books. I didn't enjoy this book as much as her others because I didn't identify with Frankie and thought that some of her actions and the results of her actions were a bit unrealistic. This would not be a character I'd care about seeing in future books. Nevertheless, this book was an easy read that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me a galley of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Frankie Elkin isn't a cop and she isn't a private investigator. She's an unassuming middle-aged woman and a recovering alcoholic who has a compulsion: to locate missing women and girls the authorities haven't been able to find. She also has ghosts in her past that she's trying to outrun.

Frankie travels the country tracking lost women, moving into communities with little more than a change of clothes, a flip phone, and an open mind, then doggedly following her instincts. She cares about the women she's seeking, and she's not afraid to ask uncomfortable questions.

I loved how Gardner took Frankie and the others investigating the situation through realistically zigzagging paths of information, supposition, hunches, and a few dead ends before reaching the final resolution. This didn't feel frustrating to me as the reader, yet the facts don't give themselves up too easily. Frankie is required to show extreme mental and physical fortitude, and the heroes here are all variously and interestingly faulted. The story feels urgent and realistically complicated, and Gardner doesn't rely on red herrings. She also clearly did her research into the ins and outs of the situation at the center of the trouble here.

This is my first Lisa Gardner book, and I love how character driven the mystery was. I'm in for more more more.

I received an advance reader copy of this book, published January 19, through Dutton Books and NetGalley. If you read it, please let me know what you think!

Although I generally don't enjoy books told in the 1st person, I liked the story. A flawed lead character and an interesting supporting cast, kept me engaged and eager to reach the conclusion.

Lisa Gardner adds an exciting new character to her mystery lexicon in Before She Disappeared: Frankie Elkin, a recovering alcoholic with a new addiction that helps control her unhealthy urges – the energy she once used to chase down her next drink is now used to find missing people.

Frankie’s brought closure to fourteen families by finding out exactly what happened to their errant kin and she’s determined to do the same for Angelique Badeau’s Aunt Guerline and brother Emmanuel. According to all the stories Frankie’s seen online, Angelique went to school as usual one day – and never came home. It was as if she just vanished into thin air; she doesn’t appear anywhere on the numerous cameras in the area, there’s no physical evidence of a kidnapping, and as is usual in that particular location, no one saw anything. Angelique has been gone for eleven months, so law enforcement is no longer actively looking for her- which makes it the perfect time for Frankie to begin her search.

The first step in Frankie’s hunt is to move to the girl’s home turf – Mattapan, a Boston-Haitian neighborhood with a rough reputation. The next step is to get a job. Frankie’s a meticulous researcher and she already knows where she wants to work and live – Stoney’s, a local pub with an apartment for lease directly above it. She sweet-talks the owner into giving her a position and letting her rent the flat, and then she heads straight to the Badeau residence; it is crucial that the family involve her in the investigation. They can request police reports, ask the cops to talk to her, tell her where to start looking – without the Badeau’s help Frankie will be stonewalled by officials and locked out of the now cold case search for Angelique.

They are understandably wary of this strange white woman trying to involve herself in the hunt for a missing black immigrant girl. Frankie explains her process, assures them she’s not after money and cajoles them into introducing her to the neighborhood police liaison officer. After checking out her credentials and talking to her in person, he in turn tells lead detective Dan Lotham about her.

Lotham isn’t excited about having Frankie involved in his case. He’s done a thorough job of searching for the missing teen himself. However, Frankie quickly demonstrates she is the real deal by finding information that had been missed in the initial investigation, thus proving to both him and the family that her dedication and skills will bring results. Then she finds the next clue and the next and quickly realizes that Angelique has been leaving a trail of breadcrumbs all along… miniscule hints as to what she’s caught up in that will result in an explosive, shocking conclusion.

This is an engaging story which will keep you riveted from start to finish. The irascible, damaged, tenacious Frankie is a fantastic heroine. We know she has had pain in her past – not just as a result of her drinking, but from the price her drinking forced others to pay. The ghosts of those she hurt – one man in particular – haunt her. She’s a clear headed, no-nonsense sleuth in spite of her demons – maybe even because of them – and she is determined to alleviate the suffering that families experience due to a relative disappearing. It’s an admirable quality and one that quickly endears her to the reader.

I appreciated that the story didn’t go about solving the mystery by highlighting police ineptitude. Instead, we discover there was nothing shoddy about Detective Lotham’s search for Angelique – he really had tried hard to find her and run a meticulous investigation. Lotham is another great character – driven, dedicated and like Frankie, a touch irascible and obsessive. I liked how these two persistent, motivated people tentatively begin working together, slowly learning what a dynamic duo they are. There are hints of the possibility of a romance as their partnership starts to blossom but will they act on them? Since this is a mystery and not a romance, I’ll leave that for you to find out.

With all I loved about the book, though, I had some issues. Most mysteries are unbelievable and can be easily picked apart by in depth analysis, and the great ones keep you so involved, move you so quickly through the story you simply don’t have time to notice the flaws. Ms. Gardner does a fantastic job with the pacing – we move briskly from one point to the next – but I still found the character of Frankie so fantastical that I didn’t need to think too deeply to find her implausible. She is a lousy employee, yet gets to keep her job. She’s a total stranger and yet witnesses talk to her easily; she just happens to have the right people present when she is asking just the right questions… combined, these aspects really stretched my suspension of disbelief.

The second point is a quibble and is mentioned only because I know that a lot of people right now read books through a political lens, so I want to offer a mild warning regarding white savior complex in the text. Frankie describes herself as “an average middle-aged white woman with more regrets than belongings” and as having “no special skills or training”. She “finds missing people – particularly minorities. . . When the police have given up, when the public no longer remembers, when the media have never bothered to care”. Again, this is very admirable. But it is also a touch disconcerting, that this broke, damaged – but dedicated – white woman could come into a black community, served by minority police officers and detectives – and solve a case they couldn’t. The author very wisely gives no suggestion of incompetence to the cops, and she populates the community with caring, kind, engaged individuals. She goes out of her way to paint Angelique, her friends and her brother as smart people who will be able to do great things in the world. Nevertheless, it was a touch discombobulating to have one of the only white characters in the tale be the primary hero who swoops in and solves a puzzle no one else was able to.

I want to emphasize that I enjoyed Before She Disappeared despite its quirks. It’s a fun, quick mystery that is highly enjoyable if you don’t stop and think about it too much. Ms. Gardner is a talented wordsmith whose smooth prose, skillful characterizations and energetic pacing make her books a joy to read. I would recommend this to fans of the suspense genre, with the caveat that it definitely has a few issues which keep it from the perfection the author is frequently able to attain.

This was my first Lisa Gardner book after hearing how amazing her books are for so long and it did not disappoint. I also just learned that this was her first stand alone novel in twenty years! This book was amazing and my heart is still reeling. I now understand why everyone loves Lisa Gardner and her stories SO much.

The plot from page one was gripping and had me hooked immediately. What kept me turning the pages was the twists. I never felt bored or like the story lulled at all. It was gripping and moving from the very first page.

Frankie is a character you can relate to and become connected with because of her flaws. No matter her flaws and her past, she uses them as motivation to help and to keep going.

I loved this book and without a doubt will be picking up many more Lisa Gardner stories.

Thank you Netgalley and Dutton for this e-ARC!

Lisa Gardner's Before She Disappeared is the author's first standalone novel in, I believe 20 years. Frankie Elkin is an average middle-aged white woman, a recovering alcoholic with more regrets than belongings, who still suffers from the loss of a man who tried to save her. She spends her life doing what no one else will—searching for missing people the world has stopped looking for. When the police have given up, when the public no longer remembers, when the media has never paid attention, Frankie starts looking. To date, Frankie has found 14 individuals.

Her new case takes her to D.D. Warren's stomping grounds of Boston. Almost a year ago, 15-year-old Angelique Lovelie Badeau disappeared without a trace. There have been no sightings, no leads, no breaks in the case, and as the days go by, no hope of finding Angelique alive. The first 48 hours are also critical to any investigation because that's when investigators have the best chance of following up on leads, before people's memories start to fade. After that, it becomes hope and lots of praying that the authorities find who they are searching for. Frankie’s investigation begins in the Mattapan neighborhood of Boston.

Mattapan is mostly a non-white neighborhood with dangerous gangs and criminals, so she already sticks out like a sore thumb. There are a lot of murders, non-fatal stabbings, and it’s a hot bed of gang activity. Each block may be held by different gangs. After contacting the reluctant family telling them that she’s there to help find Angelique and bring her home, Frankie takes a job at a bar called Stoney's. Stoney rents her the room above the bar in exchange for working there 5 days a week. She shares the space with a possibly psychotic cat named Piper who likes to leave presents behind.

Frankie gets blow back from the local Boston P.D. liaison to the Haitian community who doesn’t want her there. She meets Boston P.D. Detective Lotham who was primary investigator handling Angelique’s case and soon she’s proving more valuable than he thought. Finding the missing Haitian teenager becomes increasingly difficult Frankie comes to discover, but she won’t stop trying to uncover the truth. Then Frankie learns that Angelique’s brother mayhave plenty of information that has been ignored by the cops. Emmanuel may hold the key to finding his sister, but at what cost?

Gardner created a very realistic character in Frankie Elkin. Frankie is an alcoholic who travels the country searching for missing persons that the public has stopped looking for. In the beginning of the story, she just successfully found a girl who went missing even though the locals wanted nothing to do with her. This is a normal occurrence for Frankie. The police don’t like her interference, the family believe she’s out for fame and fortune, and yet she doesn’t take a dime from the families. Frankie, who has been sober for 9 years, struggles everyday to forgive herself for her past mistakes which I can honestly say I continue to do this day.

Frankie often puts herself in dangerous situations and we get small clues to her past throughout the book. The story takes some time to develop and it just seems to get stranger and stranger as a few new clues come to light. I was not close to figuring this one out and I did enjoy how it turned out. There was some wonderful secondary characters in this book from Stoney, who doesn’t know what to think about Frankie, to Val who is a happily married cook who works for Stoney, to Piper the cat who leaves presents for Frankie, to Detective Lotham who she has a curious connection to. I even liked Emmanuel who is highly intelligent and didn’t turn his back on Frankie when she asked for help. There were a lot of twists and great character development. I loved Frankie and I wouldn’t mind if the author came back to her in the future to see if she ever finds her own Happy Ending.

Frankie Elkin may not have her own life together but she has a knack for finding missing people. A middle aged recovering alcoholic on the run from her past, Frankie searches for those the world has forgotten about. A new case brings her to a rough neighborhood in Mattapan, Boston where a Haitian teen vanished from her high school without a trace. Frankie quickly discovers that someone doesn't want her asking questions. Frankie will have to work fast if she wants to find the girl and before she becomes the next one to disappear.

Before She Disappeared is an exciting new stand-alone mystery/thriller from author Lisa Gardner. The main protagonist is a spunky amateur sleuth named Frankie who takes on missing person cases, primarily minorities, which have gone cold. Because she isn't a police officer or PI, she gets a lot of resistance from local police as well as the family of those missing. She is good at what she does and has already solved 14 cases. I tend to love a feisty, damaged, female protagonist so I was immediately drawn to Frankie's character. Frankie takes a new case in Mattapan, Boston where she finds herself in a particularly rough neighborhood. She quickly makes acquaintances with several local’s giving us a cast of wonderful characters, including her feral roommate Piper, to enjoy. It's unfortunate this was a stand-alone novel because I would love to see this character solve cases as part of a reoccurring series. This was a fast-paced mystery thriller I didn't want to put down.

Celebrating 20 years —one of the "best" crime thriller writers out today, the #1 New York Times bestselling author, Lisa Gardner delivers a killer standalone, BEFORE SHE DISAPPEARED with the introduction of a new unstoppable heroine, Frankie Elkin.

If you are a fan of Gardner's Boston Detective D.D. Warren, FBI Agent Kimberly Quincy, and vigilante Flora Dane, you are assured to root for Frankie Elkin —an expert in missing persons. Frankie reminds me a big of Flora, in fact.

Frankie is not a police officer nor a PI.
She has no prior skills or special training.
She is only an average, middle-aged white woman with more regrets than belongings, more sad stories than happy ones.

She works best when the police have given up, the public no longer remembers, when the media has never bothered to care. She starts looking. She wants no money, no recognition, and no help. She travels all around the country. She volunteers her time. The forgotten ones.

Frankie's past torments her. She is a recovering alcoholic, an addict, an ex-lover, and a lost soul. As an amateur sleuth, she can solve cold cases when the best of technology and authorities have given up and some of the families.

She is driven. She knows how to ask the right questions. The families trust her. She looks where no one else has thought to look. The authorities do not always welcome her nor the families until they see her in action. She is tenacious and will stop at nothing, even risking her own life to find the missing person.

She has a super track record. However, she still strives to locate the victim before they are dead. She will live and work and travel wherever she is needed. She works alone. Frankie is passionate and determined. She travels light. She carries no smartphone or electronics. She has a Tracfone and a screwdriver kit that doubles as a hair clip. She is street smart and fearless. She listens, she relates. She has a heart of gold.

As the book opens, Frankie finds a body when no one else could. Case closed. Now it is time for her next case.

BEFORE SHE DISAPPEARED is set in Mattapan, a neighborhood of diverse cultures in Boston in a high-crime area. Native Americans, Irish, Jewish, and Haitian immigrants are now home to a large African American and Caribbean community.

Frankie, in particular, helps minorities. She takes a job as a bartender (she like to face the booze-monster head on) in the small town where she sticks out, and the job comes with a room upstairs at a fair price and a cantankerous cat, Piper. Stoney, the owner, does not say much, but he is observant. Viv, the woman cook, takes her under her wing. Stoney has a thing for strays and recognizes a lost soul when he sees one.

She must find Angelique Badeau. Sixteen years old. Missing eleven months. Her goal is to bring her home alive.

Her aunt, Guerline, and brother Emmanuel finally learn to trust her. Angelique left school one day and has not been seen since. That was eleven months ago. She also had two friends, Kyra and Marjorie. Very smart, good grades, ambitious, and no boyfriends.

Thus far, she has found no one alive and determined this will be the first. However, as she gets closer to the truth with the help of Emmanuel and his computer skills, she is in danger and the family. Nothing will stand in her way!

I loved Frankie and Detective Lotham! What a great cast of characters. Frankie has lots of support, as each person gets to know her quirky ways. True-crime fans will find a lot to like here! There is plenty of heart-pounding action and suspense.

Multi-layered, a raw, gritty, INTENSE, compelling, and riveting page-turner standalone you will not be able to put down. I am hoping we see Frankie again in a series!

Grief and loss are topics interwoven in the novel. There are plenty of raw emotions from all sides, especially the family searching for missing loved ones, which can turn cold with little hope.

Gardner dives deep into the police procedures and criminal minds (in all her books), and this time around, she adds one more perspective, an amateur sleuth. Always great research. She draws you in from page one and never lets you go.

I enjoyed learning about this diverse city and its characters. A top book of 2021! Do not miss this one. Lisa continues to be my favorite crime author out today, and I cannot wait to see more Frankie, DD Warren, Flora Dane, and Kimberly Quincy. Move this one to the top of your list NOW!

INTERVIEW: Check out my Elevator Ride with Lisa and learn all the exclusives and behind the book's scenes and the "queen of suspense." Fun, Fun. 🤩 Do not miss it!

#JDCMustReadBooks

"Memories sear. I have so many of them now. They're not precious moments, but burning hot coals I keep picking up and turning over in my mind. They hurt. I study them harder. They burn deeper. I come back for more." —Frankie

Frankie Elkin is a not-so-average middle-aged woman. She's a recovering alcoholic .. and she spends her life looking for missing people that have been forgotten by all except their family and loved ones. So far, she's found 14 missing people .... none of them were alive when found.

She's now on the search for Angelique Badeau, a teenager who vanished from high school several months previously and hasn't been heard from since. She's receiving no help from the family and the detective from Boston Police has warned her off the case.

Frankie, being who Frankie is, ignores the warnings and continues with her search, picking up small nuggets of information here and there. She does share with the detective ..but she's not sure if it's made him madder or is a bit more appreciative of her work.

Frankie is not going to stop until she finds what happened to Angelique, and when she discovers that another girl from the same school disappeared at almost the same time, it changes everything.

There's someone watching Frankie ...someone who knows something ... and wants Frankie to go away.

There's lots of action ... wrapped around a character that has some issues. Even being an alcoholic, she works as a bartender when she's looking for work. She takes no money from finding missing people. Local police either love her or hate her. But even with all her issues, she's got a sense of humor. The other characters kept me riveted to the pages. Suspense took hold from the very first and held tight until the unexpected conclusion.

Many thanks to the author / Penguin Group / Dutton Books / Netgalley for the digital copy of this crime fiction. Read and reviewed voluntarily, opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.

I got this as an eARC through NetGalley!!

Frankie is a middle aged white woman with no home, no family, no life. She is a recovering alcoholic who helps solve missing persons cases. After she helps the police find a woman dead in her truck in a lake, she finds herself in a small town called Mattapan in Boston tracking down a 16 year old named Angelique. Mattapan is riddled with gang activity and has a murder and stabbing multiple times a day. Angelique disappeared without a trace November 5th from school and hasn’t been since since. The case went cold and Angelique has been missing for 11 months. Frankie is determined to find her.

Could Angelique have run away? Boyfriend? Hiding from deportation? Did she get involved with the wrong people? How could a 16 year old disappear into thin air?

This book was slow at the beginning but then again what police case isn’t? It took me a little to get into but then I found myself not being able to put it down! I finished it in a little more than a day and I am SO glad I stuck it out. The book may be slow at the beginning but it is all necessary to the bigger plot twist in the book. If you love a book that messes with your head and has you questioning whether you really know the characters you should definitely check out Before She Disappeared.

I was lucky enough to have enough time to just sit and read this one inside of a day, and you’ll definitely want to keep turning the pages to find out what happens next.

Frankie Elkin is your run-of-the mill, average, middle-age white woman, with a couple of things that sets her apart. First, she’s an alcoholic. She’s been clean for several years, but she still craves a drink every day, even though she claims that bartending doesn’t make the want any worse. Second, she has major regrets from her past that she tries to make amends for every day she’s still alive. And third, she spends her life searching for missing persons – specifically missing women from minority groups that everyone else has given up on finding. In this story, she finds herself in a rough Boston neighborhood, where Angelique Badeau, a smart, focused Haitian teenager disappeared from school almost a year ago.

I liked Frankie’s character in this book. She’s obviously broken – and a lot of reasons are given for this – but she’s turning her own pain into trying to heal others, which is an admirable quality. The author did a good job teasing out her past, trying to show why she continues the Sisyphean task of moving around the country, finding these missing women, in her attempt to atone for her past mistakes.

I also liked the dialogue between the characters. It seemed smart, witty, reminding me a bit of crime noir style but a bit edgier.

The only thing that bogged it down a bit for me, though, was the reason why Angelique went missing in the first place. I guess the stakes were technically high, but it just felt a bit dry in an otherwise fast-paced book.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from Penguin Group Dutton and NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. It has not influenced my opinion.

Before She Disappeared by Lisa Gardner is a dramatic thriller with a wonderful storyline that keeps you guessing from page one. The book opens with a dramatic scene of a scuba diver finding a missing woman submerged in a lake. You find out that the heroine, Frankie, has devoted her life to find those who are missing that are no longer being searched for. A real life cold case draws her to look for clues and she has been successful in giving answers 14 times previously. Sadly, those fourteen people found were no longer living but at least closure was able to begin for their families.

Frankie is drawn to Mattapan, a rough neighborhood in Boston, to locate a missing fifteen year old Haitian girl, Angel, who disappeared eleven months ago. The richness of the research and the genuine fear you had for Frankie as she navigates the gangs and other elements speaks to the talent of Gardner,

While this is marketed as a stand alone, I know the Gardner fans of her D.D. Warren
series will be clamoring for more of Frankie. Her character lends perfectly for multiple sequels.

You are given glimpses of flashbacks of Frankie’s life and what led her to this unconventional path but you are still left with questions, Angel is painted as a sympathetic character but you will wonder what is real and what has been manipulated. The devotion of her 13 year old brother Emmanuel to Angel is also endearing and has you hoping that this victim can be found alive for his sake, You also will be drooling over the wonderful and authentic Haitian food referenced.

All the characters have flaws and secrets which draws the reader even further. You can not help but try to figure out who to sympathize with and who is at fault. Trust me though, you will be shocked when it is not at all what it seems.

I was provided a free advance reader copy from Penguin Group Dutton in exchange for my honest review on Net Galley. The opinions shared in this review are my own.

This is the fourth book I’ve read of Lisa Gardner’s and she’s seriously the mystery queen! She writes such a perfect, solid mystery.

Things I loved:
-the mystery kept me guessing the whole time and I didn’t figure out the ending! Always love when I’m not a good enough detective
-the police procedural aspects, along with a regular citizen trying to solve the case
-gripping, page turner

Things that weren’t my favourite:
-towards about 3/4 through I started to lose a bit of interest, felt like it slowed down a bit. But then picked up nicely again for the ending

4⭐️ Thank you to Dutton for the #gifted copy to review! Mystery lovers - grab your copy today!

This was a huge disappointment for me. This entire book fell flat, except for the ending and the overall writing style. The characters did not work for me. The main character was flat; she had no personality. Her only perosnality trait was being an alcoholic. The alcoholic representation was good, in my opinion, but I am not an addict so I cannot say for sure. But the main character just made it her only personality trait and it got boring. This book was about 150 pages too long. I found myself getting so bored, which is crazy considereing the details of the crime in the book. But there was just so many unneccessary plot points and repeated story lines that I found myself gettin annoyed at the plot. The list thirty or so pages I ended up really liking becasue it was action packed. But the rest of the book did not match. Overall, this mystery had an interesting plot but not much else to it.

This is the story of a f a recovering addict with a troubled past. Her friend was killed years before while trying to help her. The guilt overshadows her life. To atone, she travels the country picking up cold cases and finding the bodies and solving the cases. She lands in Boston to find a missing teenager. This was a real page-turner for me, very hard to put down. I highly recommend this book. Lisa Gardner does not disappoint.

From my blog: Always With a Book:

It's no secret that I am a HUGE Lisa Gardner fan. I've read all her Detective D.D. Warren books and many of the books in her other series. When I saw that the author was writing her first stand-alone novel in 20 years, I knew I had to read it, and I loved it!

One thing about Lisa Gardner's books is that while they can be a bit dark, they are incredibly addicting. I was completely captivated by this story and because I listened to it, I found myself walking just a little bit longer or doing just a little bit more cleaning because I did not want to stop listening.

I also love that we are once again given an incredibly strong main character. Frankie Elkin is not without her own problems, but she is a force to be reckoned with - and I love characters like this. Yes, she is deeply flawed but that's what makes her so interesting. I couldn't wait to get into her backstory as much as I wanted to see what she was going to do about the missing girl. This was an instance where I was as invested in the main character as much as the plot she was involved in, if that makes any sense.

This is such a multilayered story that keeps you on the edge of your seat. Frankie is such a fantastic new character and I loved the way she takes her anger about her past and channels that into solving the missing person cases she takes on, cases that have gone cold and everyone else has given up on. I loved her determination and grit, and her never-give-up attitude. And let's not forget all the interesting and intriguing characters we meet that Frankie either needs on her side for the case or meets at the bar where she works to make some money while staying in the area.

This book kept me guessing all the way through and I had no idea where it was headed. The suspense builds quite nicely and the ending took me by surprise. While this is marked as a stand-alone now, the way it ends leaves the possibly that Lisa Gardner could come back and revisit Frankie Elkin one day and nothing would make me happier! I would definitely love to see this turn into a series!


Audio thoughts: This was a stellar audio book. Hillary Huber brought her A-game to narrate this one and I absolutely loved it! Her pacing and intonation were spot on and she infused just the right amount of tension and emotion into her voice as necessary. There was even the right humor inflected into her voice when needed, particularly anytime Piper the cat was involved! I'm quite familiar with Hillary Huber and know when I see her name listed as the narrator, I'm in good hands!