Before She Disappeared: A Novel

by Lisa Gardner

THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Gardner, a propulsive thriller featuring an ordinary woman who will stop at nothing to find the missing people that the rest of the world has forgotten

Frankie Elkin is an average middle-aged woman, a recovering alcoholic with more regrets than belongings. But 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.

A new case brings her to Mattapan, a Boston neighborhood with a rough reputation. She is searching for Angelique Badeau, a Haitian teenager who vanished from her high school months earlier. Resistance from the Boston PD and the victim's wary family tells Frankie she's on her own--and she soon learns she's asking questions someone doesn't want answered. But Frankie will stop at nothing to discover the truth, even if it means the next person to go missing could be her.

• ISBN10: 1524745049
• ISBN13: 9781524745042
• Publish Date: 19 January 2021
• Publish Status: Out of Stock
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
• Imprint: Dutton
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 400
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9781524745042

Reviews

[zooloo1983]

Wow-what a story, what a book! I knew that I would love it, I mean it is a Lisa Gardner book for starters, but she is prolific in sucking you into her world and feeling everything your characters feel. She has made me feel nervous, she has made me well up but mostly she has managed to turn my upside down and inside out trying to figure out who was behind everything especially when the answers are right in your face!

I never knew that were people in America, and no doubt in this country, work freelance, sometimes for food and board to find the missing people that other people forget about. I am in awe of these people, these people who have given up their lives to travel all over to get closure for these families. I mean hats off to these people. Just I have no words.

Back to the story though, Frankie is one of these people, she has nothing, all she wants is bed and board and the freedom to locate Angelique, the missing girl. She has a past that is slowly uncovered and as with most pasts it is a heartbreaking one and one you really wish wouldn’t be true. Frankie, is white and she is heading into a part of Boston where she is really not welcome, she is the minority. No one wants to help her, but she powers through, and she starts to cause ripples, these ripples do not make some people happy. She builds some friendships and I loved seeing these blossom, even if you know that they are short term.

I loved Frankie and I love her story, I know this is Ms Gardner’s first standalone novel in 10 years or so, but I would love Frankie to have her own series. I feel there is so much more with her. I want to know more about her past and what drove her to do what she does.

I really enjoyed this and I just want more. Frankie is raw, real and unapologetic about the way she is and why should she. She has her mission and she does not deter from that, she wants the closure one way or another. Just like us the reader.