A review by rosemaryandrue
Before She Disappeared by Lisa Gardner

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

Frankie Elkin is a roving seeker of missing people, and in her latest case she’s come to Boston to discover what happened to Angelique Badeau, a Haitian teenager who vanished almost a year ago.

Like she does to the cops and the community, Frankie first struck me as strange and perhaps untrustworthy but like she did with them she grew on me too. She’s a flawed person with no illusions about it, and her steadfast pursuit of the missing won me over during the course of the book.

Having lived many years in Boston and volunteered at the kind of school Angelique went to (even if I never went to Mattapan much), I loved how the author really did her research and created a sense of the place and people who live there. Similarly, I felt immersed in Frankie’s experiences as a sober person with an alcohol addiction and loved how the AA network played into how she became immersed in the community and eventually solved the case.

The mystery is an interesting and engaging one, and Frankie’s investigation kept me guessing throughout, even if I did think she got one or two convenient lucky breaks. I wasn’t super invested either in her situationship with Detective Lotham, but it’s a small enough part of the book that while I’d have preferred it left out it didn’t affect my reading experience much either.

I’ve already put a hold on the next book at my local library. Excited to see where Frankie’s search takes her next!