BEFORE SHE DISAPPEARED

SYNOPSIS

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.

Title: Before she disappeared

Author: Lisa Gardner

Publisher: Dutton

Publication date: January 19, 2021

REVIEW

RATING: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Frankie Elkin is a recovering alcoholic whose life mission is to search for those missing people everyone else has forgotten. Her new case brings her to Mattapan, a rough Boston neighborhood, in search of Angelique Badeau, a Haitian teen who disappeared a year earlier. Soon she encounters resistance from Boston PD and the missing girl environment but nothing will stop her in her search for the truth.

Frankie is a flawed and vulnerable yet strong character. As her statement "I'm growing on the population of Mattapan", she grew on me too. It took some time but once she did I kept rooting for her to succeed in her search of Angelique as it was clear she needed it to help her exorcize some of her demons.

There were some great supporting characters as Stoney, Viv or Detective Lotham, and I loved how their initial rebuff of Frankie turned into respect once they realized her only interest was to help Angelique's family. There was some really smart dialogue and her sassiness while talking to some people was so much fun to read.

It was nice to keep learning little nuggets of her background as the story went on, although her reasoning to devote herself to the search of missing persons could have been a little bit better grounded.

I listened to the audiobook version (great work of the narrator, btw) and some times my mind just wandered a bit, especially at the beginning, cause the story took some time to pick up. It was much better paced once Frankie started working along Detective Lotham.

Very well written story with a multilayered main character and a great cast of supporting ones. I know this is supposed to be a stand-alone but I can clearly see it developing into a series I would gladly keep coming back to.