Frankie Elkin is a one in a million character. So unique, so broken, and so very memorable. I loved her and was sad when I turned the last page on her story.

That being said, she could, potentially return in further books (she said with her fingers and toes crossed). However, I want Frankie to stop drifting and stay in Boston, working at Stoney’s bar, going to AA meetings with Charlie, chewing the fat with Viv, and teaming up with Boston Police Detective Lotham.

I adored the writing in this book. The dreadful and disturbing circumstances which were lightened with levity and sarcasm. This is my very first Lisa Gardner book, and now I want to read her previous work.

The book brings home the truism that people all over are really the same. Regardless of their social standing, ethnicity, religion, or other persuasion, people all want enough food to eat, a safe place to live, someone to care for, someone who cares for them.

This novel also spoke to the plight of illegal immigrants in this modern world. It told of inner city teens striving to better themselves and their situations in any way they can.

I adored this book much more than I expected to. It is all Frankie Elkin’s fault.

Highly recommended!

With thanks to Netgalley and Random House uk

Before she disappeared is a book about Frankie Ellon, a woman who goes out of her way to find those who are missing and that no one seems to care about, but who she cares about. 

Before she disappeared is fast paced and kept me guessing right up the final few chapters. A great read.

I will be looking out for more books by Lisa Gardner.

I wasn't sure at first if I was going to like this book as I couldn't get to grips with the first chapter but it was worth persevering. Frankie Elkin spends her time trying to find missing people.  She has not been hired by anyone; she just looks to see who has gone missing and decides to help where she can.  The book is set in Boston and Frankie has seen that a black teenage girl, Angelique, is missing. She decides to try to help and comes up against the different prejudices the city contains.  A white woman in a black area with no real purpose?  She gets a job in a local  bar and befriends the policeman who investigated the disappearance when it first happened 11 months ago.
There seemed to be a bit in the middle that got me bogged down a bit but then we raced towards the end and the answer to the puzzle.  All in all, I enjoyed reading this book!

This was a fascinating story about finding missing girls. The characters were brilliant and easy to relate to. The storyline was full of interesting facts and non stop action. It was an absorbing read with a great conclusion.

I don't tend to read a lot of missing person type novels as they can be quite distressing, but couldn't pass up the chance of Lisa Gardner's latest book - and it is a cracking read!

Frankie Ellon is a bit of a nomad; she owns very little and travels around to wherever there are unsolved missing person cases - ones that are no longer being worked on although there is no satisfactory resolution. It's something she's good at, so she travels around to wherever she feels she is needed to help families find closure. This is how this slight, white woman finds herself in a rough, mainly black, area of Boston where a teenage girl disappeared eleven months ago and her family have been left in limbo. Frankie seeks no fame, fortune or notoriety; only to put matters to rest - one way or the other. As she begins to dig deeper, someone out there doesn't like Frankie's presence..

This is an author who is always worth reading; even though I couldn't see where things were heading at the beginning, nothing would have stopped me from continuing and before long I was completely engaged in an exciting tale. People go missing all the time; we hear about them but rarely discover the whole truth. The characters are skilfully crafted and fully rounded with a wide range of likeable and unlikeable traits. Frankie herself is quite fearless - like her roommate - and she is both tenacious and admirable. I can see why she's so slim - she never stops! The story plays out beautifully with several moments of breath-holding and hearing my hammering pulse! With everything neatly tied off by the end, this is a thrilling novel and one I'm happy to give 4.5*.

My thanks to the publisher for my copy via NetGalley; this is - as always - my honest, original and unbiased review.

Frankie Elkin is an average middle-aged woman with more regrets than belongings who 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 Frankie 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 will be her.
The minute I read the premise of the book; I just couldn’t wait to read it. It was so intriguing.

Once I started reading it, I was engaged right till the end. The plot had everything to make it an excellent read.

I loved the main character, Frankie’s story. The work she does is so amazing. By doing what she does, she manages to give hope to those families of the missing people. Her dealing with her addiction is inspiring. And her investigation was meticulous and fearless.

The supporting characters were also good especially Frankie's co-workers and Detective Lotham. The suspense was maintained throughout the book, and the constant discoveries and twists made the plot interesting

I really do hope this is turns into a series, because I do want to read more of Frankie.

Thank You NetGalley and Random House UK, Cornerstone for this ARC!

This is a well researched novel. I wasn’t aware that there really are ordinary people with no qualifications or authority actively looking for missing people. Frankie, the main protagonist is a recovering alcoholic who has exchanged one addiction for another with some success. She has solved 14 cases, but sadly all deceased. This time is going to be different she believes.
Lisa’s books are always great (I recommend the D.D.Warren series) and I loved this one. The Boston Haitian community and locality is so well described and as always her characters leap off the page. Frankie instinctively knows the right questions to ask, which antagonises the police until they realise she is actually making progress. The interaction between characters is great, leavened with touches of humour - beware the feral cat!
This is a novel which keeps you turning the pages through a well plotted story with surprises and shocks aplenty. Don’t miss it, it deserves to be huge.

‘My name is Frankie Elkin and finding missing people-particularly minorities- is what I do. When the police have given up, when the public no longer remembers, when the media has never bothered to care, I start looking.’

‘Before She Disappeared’ is the new stand-alone thriller from Lisa Gardner. I love her Detective D.D. Warren series and was looking forward to this one. Lisa Gardner does not disappoint! 

Frankie Elkin, a recovering alcoholic, arrives in Boston and is heading to rough and poor neighbourhood Mattapan her next temporary ‘home’. It is in Mattapan that Frankie looks into the disappearing of 15-year-old Angelique ‘Lili’ Badeau, who left no trace of where she went and with who. 

The leads have dried up, but the local police force is not keen on Frankie’s help in the matter. But when Frankie asks the right questions to the right people and looks at the case from a different point of view, she manages to link not one but two missing girl cases. Together with Detective Dan Lotham, Frankie gets to the core of the case. But asking the right questions to the right, or should I say wrong people, not only endangers her own life, but also of those she speaks to and eventually help her.

The story has a nice, steady pace and both Frankie and the different characters are well written and believable. I was definitely rooting for Frankie and Detective Lotham. I actually hope this is the start of a series as I believe there is so much more to tell about Frankie’s story and her own personal traumas. 

Thank you NetGalley and Random House UK, Cornerstone for my eARC. My opinion is my own.

Frankie Elkin finds missing persons that others have forgotten about. 
When Frankie takes on a new case in Boston looking for missing teenager Angelique Badeau who disappeared one day from school without a trace.
With no leads to go on and the local police not helping it's up to Frankie to find out the truth.

Another brilliant novel by Lisa featuring Frankie an ex alcoholic who devotes her life to finding people who have  disappeared when everyone else has almost given up. I think all the other reviewers have said it all, another brilliant book by this author.

Charged, absorbing, and suspenseful!

Before She Disappeared is a well-paced, menacing thrill ride that takes us into the life of Frankie Elkin, a scarred, middle-aged woman who even while struggling with a past littered with grief, addiction, and heartbreak, travels from place to place identifying and pursuing new evidence in cold cases, but this latest investigation may have the highest odds yet with a missing teenage victim who may still be alive and the people who took her more than willing to kill to keep her.

The writing is sharp and meticulous. The characters are determined, ruthless, and resourceful. And the plot is a mysterious, compelling web of deduction, lies, exploitation, corruption, greed, violence, manipulation, and murder.

Before She Disappeared is another sophisticated, gritty, unnerving read by Gardner that may be the first standalone novel she’s written in a while but still has all the twists, turns, suspense, in-depth character development, and forensic analysis we’ve come to expect and love from all her previous novels.

Frankie Elkin finds the forgotten and lost. She won’t give up even when everyone else has. Her latest case takes her to Mattapen, a small neighbourhood in Boston. She is looking for Angelique Badeau who went missing from her high school a month ago.
With resistance from the police and people in the local area Frankie must use her strength and resolve to find the truth, even drawing on her own demons and dreams. She will not be stopped until she brings Angelique home, dead or alive.
With her brilliant ability to draw the reader in from the start, Lisa Gardner has written a highly intense and complex novel with a gritty, kickass main character that is just magnificent. This is a hell of a story that will keep the reader guessing until its dramatic end.
I personally think this book is outstanding and think it will be one of the books of the year.

At the moment, international travel is near-impossible but thanks to Lisa Gardner’s tremendous writing skills, this novel transports us to the fictional Boston neighbourhood of Mattapan, where we immediately become enmeshed in the life of a conflicted character who seems to leap from the pages, as she is described in such convincing prose. This character is Frankie Elgin, a recovering alcoholic who has made it her mission to search for missing people who have become ‘cold cases’ in the police statistics and sometimes, sadly, also in the hearts of their dependents. Frankie has so far found more than fourteen missing persons, but sadly all deceased. This time, she is seeking for 15 year-old Haitian girl Angélique Badeau, an excellent student who mysteriously disappeared after school almost a year ago. Mattapan is not a place most people would like to set foot into but becomes the gripping backdrop that is almost a character in its own right. Slowly and steadfastedly, Frankie threads herself into a rough, neglected neighbourhood that initially rejects this unusual, fiercely independent and old-fashioned lady who is keen to redeem herself for a tragic event that occurred a decade ago. How Frankie gets her new neighbours and the investigating police detective Lotham, to trust her, and how she patiently but ruthlessly assembles all the facts that point to the fact of not one, but two teenage disappearances, is a lesson for mankind. This novel had me in its grips from the beginning to its tautly plotted end and I cannot now wait to discover more of Lisa Gardner’s novels. I would like to thank the publishers and NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for this honest and unbiased review.

How alive Lisa made the back streets of Boston in this story. The characters were full of emotion and the adorable cat Piper really added to the story.  I adored Frankie and all the way through wondered what had happened between her and Paul.
A fast paced intriguing story that I just had to keep reading. Highly recommend to anyone who loves this genre as you will not be disappointed.

It has been some time since I read a book by Lisa Gardner, but reading this reminded me of how much I enjoy her writing style, and has encouraged me to go back and pick up some of her previous books.  Gardner's skill lies in drawing you in to her books and in writing this stand-alone novel, she has created a fascinating lead character in Frankie Elkin, who I hope we will see again in future books.

Frankie is a recovering alcoholic who spends her life moving from place to place looking for missing persons who the police have given up on. To date she has found 14 people, but as yet none of them have been alive. She arrives in Boston to search for a teenage Haitian girl, Angelique, who disappeared eleven months previously - can she find her and will she still be alive? As Frankie gets to know the local community, she begins to uncover things the police seem to have missed, and the case becomes increasingly complex the more she investigates.

Gardner has created a flawed but still likeable character in Frankie and with plenty of twists and turns along the way, you find yourself rooting for Frankie as the book heads for its conclusion and she tries to uncover the truth. Gardner's writing skill and descriptive ability meant I was hooked from the beginning and spent much of the time holding my breath as the tension built to its conclusion.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

Wow what a totally amazing book.  Not my usual genre but I will certainly look out for others by Lisa Gardner.  The book is fast paced, plenty of action and such believable characters. A great read.

Sometimes you pick a book and you meet the most fascinating characters. This is what happened for me with Before She Disappeared. 

This novel was not my first by Lisa Gardner so I was already aware of her outstanding characterization skills and her intense plots. By the way, if you haven’t checked the D.D. Warren series yet, I urge you to give it a try. 
Back to Before She Disappeared… 

What happens when people disappear? There might be some noise when an investigation starts, if you are lucky, but without strong leads, files only pile up and bury the police force as well as families’ hopes of a happy ending. The number of missing person cases is horrendous. You’d think it wouldn’t be so easy to vanish from the surface of the earth in our day and age, with phones, cameras, credit cards… and yet. 

And yet teenager Angelique Badeau disappeared into thin air eleven months ago in Mattapan, an overcrowded part of Boston. No why, no how, nothing. The police haven’t been lazy, they simply haven’t been lucky either. 

Enters Frankie Elkin. No big music and big boots. No special powers. She describes herself as a middle-aged woman, white, having replaced an addiction by another, great bartender. Frankie is also very good at finding missing people. It is not her job, it is more like a calling. The one thing she does right. The chase that keeps her sane. 

Frankie is an exceptional character. I picked a couple of quotes that will give you a taste of why I am devoting most of my review to her.

“Which would you like first: caffeine or sarcasm?”

Because no one can be honest all of the time. Not even me. 

Witty, resourceful Frankie carries the weight of her world on her shoulders, but firmly believes she can help lessen the burden solidly weighing on the family of missing people. Reckless, she is however no fool and understands the risks. She carries on from one city to another, hoping to make a difference. 

There is something mesmerizing in Frankie, for her weaknesses are the fuel spurring her to get answers for others. I kept wondering. Was she looking for missing persons to avoid finding herself? She definitely is trying to fill a void, left by a terrible tragedy and her addiction to alcohol, but there is more to her than just another tormented soul. 
I must admit that often, I find myself struggling to warm up to characters dealing with alcohol issues. I never get the right details, the right personality to get the need to understand. Lisa Gardner’s protagonist is different, and the way the author has integrated her past and demons to the narration is real, awful, and perfectly written so you can actually emphasize and feel close to Frankie. 
What Frankie lacks in material possessions and diplomas; she makes up in people skills. Being a civilian has its advantages. People talk more easily. Most of the time. But Mattapan is a peculiar place where Frankie stands out. She is the minority in a neighbourhood of color. She receives quite a freezing welcome, but she needs more to give up. Again, I could have been made uncomfortable by the talks of race or community, but Lisa Gardner did her homework and knows how to express the complex notions of differences and racism. There are good and bad people of all colors, and Mattapan is no exception. Actually, it hides some amazing food places, and good people trying to play their part to make the place a little safer. 

Against all odds, Frankie finds allies, including a no-nonsense boss/landlord, a group of adorable ladies, a wonderful cook, and the reassuring safe net of AA meetings and people who understand her battles. The cast of characters is worthy of a great thriller movie. They carry the plot with such force that I couldn’t help getting tangled up in Angelique’s disappearance. I say tangled up because I felt I was part of the story, the teeny tiny mouse (not eaten by Piper, read the book to get this reference!) who sees the action unfold and holds her breath throughout. 

The plot itself is intricate, beautifully sad, and totally outraging. Friendships, trust, family, money, you get the usual suspects, the things we are so familiar with it hurts to see how much power they hold over us. Frankie dances a dangerous dance walking the streets of Mattapan, asking questions, dredging up answers from muddy waters. There is desperation in Frankie’s mission as much as in the search of missing loved ones. If the setting seems ominous and unwelcoming at first, you get transported and end up almost feeling like you belong. Almost. Because Frankie can’t belong, and as the reader following her, neither can we. Still, it felt so good to immerse myself in such a compelling and engaging novel, letting the darkness envelop me to better understand the puzzle I was working on. 

One answer after the other, I felt we were getting one step closer, then two steps further any kind of conclusions. The game was dangerous and exhilarating and the combined force of Frankie and her allies kept me hoping for the best, and begging for more.

I don’t feel I can do Before She Disappeared justice, but I hope my review will convince you to meet Frankie and start looking for Angelique. Lisa Gardner outdid herself with this superb piece of fiction that feels real enough to leave a lasting impact on you.

The synopsis gives a great intro as to who Frankie Elkin is, and I have to say she is a character who I really like. She has her vulnerabilities and it is through the course of the story that you gradually learn more about her.

Frankie is someone who doesn't really fit in, she is not able to stay in one place for long. A drifter who is seeking the truth behind people who have gone missing. She has swapped the addiction of alcohol for finding people. For someone that doesn't quite fit, she does seem to be able to make unlikely acquaintances and has discovered that not being a figure in authority makes her more trustworthy as such. Maybe trustworthy isn't the right word, but people open up to her more. I think her character is one that uses truth and honesty about her alcoholism and uses it in everyday situations.

Her latest case choice is that of a missing schoolgirl, a bright girl who didn't get into trouble and always attends class and has a good future ahead of her. Why then would she disappear. The case has gone cold and Frankie decides that she want s to help.

I hadn't realised that there were people who actually do this in real life. Not for monetary gain or fame but just to help families find closure or to reunite them.

The story of Frankie and her involvement is one that takes time, it is a good paced story and one that I found myself eagerly turning pages for. The characters cover a mixed bunch, some have more involvement than others, but there aren't any hangers-on so it makes the flow so good. The main premise is finding a missing girl, but the story is a lot more than that as Frankie soon discovers. It is a story that gradually unearths more than she originally bargained for.

I do like how the author has woven Frankie's story around that of the missing girl's case and this is where some of the other characters come in and are worked well. Being a recovering alcoholic gives her an in if you like, AA is a support group so it does stand to reason that there will be a character that will go the extra step.

This is a cracking story and one that I found really addictive. It is a crime mystery but not of the blood and guts kind. There is a mix of gangs, police, friendly faces as well as discovering Frankies mysterious past. It is a book that I would definitely recommend and I am looking forward to reading more of this author's previous books.

Frankie Elkin searches for missing people that everyone else had forgotten.

Frankie is a great character who searches for a missing child in a Boston neighbourhood and finds herself embroiled in more than she bargained for. 
Another great read by Lisa Gardner, and hopefully not the last that we have heard of Frankie.

This book was a slow burner for me, although the pace really did pick up the towards the end. 
I liked Frankie as a character,  she really grew on me more and more as I got to know her. I would definitely read more books about her if this was to become a series. 
I enjoyed the storyline,  and was keen to keep reading to work it all out. 
This was my first book by this author and I would like to read more.