This is a well-researched book with a lot of layers. There is the story of the horrors of the war in Afghanistan, and the long wait in refugee camps that housed thousands of fleeing countrymen. There is the story of what happens once they are relocated to the US and all of the things they have to learn about being in a foreign country.

But then we get to the heart of the story. Frankie Elkin travels to Tucson, Arizona, to find Sabera Ahmadi, reported missing by her best friend. Her husband doesn't seem concerned, and she has no other friends. But where does a person without resources go? In addition, she's left her young daughter, Zahra, at home. As in her other stories, Frankie must find gainful employment in order to offer her services for free. When she winds up getting room and board in exchange for a very strange job.

Things are not as they appear. Sabera's husband is a brilliant mathematician, but Sabera and her daughter both have unique skills that they try to hide from other people. Skills that make them a target for several unknown factions.

All of the characters in this book are well-developed. Frankie has an incredible amount of empathy for her missing charges. You'll fall in love with her chauffeur/ballroom dancer cum bodyguard Daryl, and trans cook/housekeeper/alternate snake handler Genni. You might want to snuggle up to Petunia (IYKYK). And okay, I'm just going to say it, you might even shed a few tears! (I'm not crying, you're crying!)

Thanks so much to NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing for an advance reader's copy from one of my favorite authors.

Wow, I'm blown away by this gripping thriller story. Ms. Faulkner doesn't disappoint at all. 4.5 stars. This story kept me engaged and I thoroughly enjoyed the character development as well as the plot.

Well, this has some heavy parts but Gardner hits on topical topics like immigration and how refugees are treated. She does a fantastic job writing relatable characters who you want to see succeed. Once again, Frankie finds herself in precarious positions while trying to find Sabera. I loved the side characters who helped Frankie - they really made the story. You can definitely read this as a standalone but I highly recommend going back to read the beginning of the series.

Kiss Her Goodbye is another captivating book featuring Frankie Elkin. This time she is helping to find an Afghan woman. She must sift through the difficult lives of the immigrants. Needless to say, she hits some dead ends, and she herself has an unusual living arrangement. This book is a welcome addition to the series.

I received this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Very long book but it kept my attention from beginning to the ending, and I never felt like the story was running behind, maybe with the exception of the bizarre house/ reptile sitter element (It didn't fit in the rest of the story imho).

The book was rich with tales about Afghanistan and really gave life to these characters.

This read is explosive and addictive!

Kiss Her Goodbye is the fourth in Lisa Gardner’s Frankie Elkin series about an unemployed woman with her own demons who spends her time hunting down missing people that no one else is looking for. I like the Frankie series, and I think this is one of the best! The premise is unique: it mixes a heartwrenching story about modern immigration to the US, and the devastations in Afghanistan with an eccentric millionaire who hires Frankie to feed his iguana and snakes. Filled with humour and heart, this is a must read from Lisa.

You can read Kiss Her Goodbye without reading the other books in the series, but there will be parts of Frankie’s story which will be confusing without the backstory. Saying that, I also think this is a great book to start your journey with Frankie if you’re new to the series because it’s such a compulsively readable book.

The book flips between the present day with Frankie’s point of view, and the past of the missing woman, Sabera’s, perspective shared in letters. We learn, through her own voice, about Sabera’s childhood and her journey to a refugee camp during the most recent fall of Afghanistan. Sabera has a lot of layers, and when she goes missing, after only recently moving to Tucson, Arizona. Nothing adds up in this case, and Frankie soon learns that there is a lot more to Sabera and her past than she has shared.

As Frankie explores this case, she is aided by the quirky staff at the wealthy gamer’s house where she found last minute employment in Tucson. She gets room and board by feeding and caretaking an array of reptiles…. Of whom Frankie is not the fondest of. Frankie is a bold and erratic main character and she is well balanced by the secondary characters in this story. I really want to see more of them in future books!

One area that I really loved about this story is the dive into life in Kabul before the fall of the city in 2021, and the details about the culture, food and the immigrant story that Lisa obviously did deep research on. Fair warning: this book will make you hungry! Sabera’s story is fascinating, and her journey to the US is heavy with loss and trauma. The people she meets on her path have a massive influence in her life. There are a couple of unbelievable twists at the end that helped wrap the storyline up neatly, but I enjoyed the chaos of it as part of the story.

If you’re craving a fast-paced thriller with some depth and heart to it, then you need to pick up Kiss Her Goodbye.

I loved the culture that was explored in this book and the learning. This book was well written, and the plot twists were perfectly sprinkled in. I have enjoyed each Frankie Elkin book so far and look forward to more of her adventures.
Thank you, NetGalley, Grand Central Publishing, and Kisa Gardner for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I have not read any of the other books in this series, so I had no horse in this race. I found this book to be easy to follow, with just enough backstory for me to be able to keep up.

This book is heartbreaking, suspenseful, and filled with a ton of red herrings, so you might never figure out what the heck is going on! I wasn't able to!

Frankie, who is a person who finds missing people (not a PI, just someone who is chasing her private fears, ghosts, and making up for the years she spent as a drunk), is compelled to find a missing woman who has emigrated to this country from Afghanistan with her daughter and husband. Sabera is a genius, literally, and it appears that her daughter is also.

I won't bore you with any more backstory or more of the plot because it would ruin this fantastic novel for you. It is filled with mystery, suspense, fighting, and the combined resources of a number of people. Some are spies, some work for the government, a cross-dressing cook, other Afghans, a bodyguard, and oh yes, an Iguana, a Python, and more.

A wonderful book for a book club, as it offers a lot of topics for discussion, including both true political ideologies and the fiction aspect.

*ARC was supplied by the publisher Grand Central Publishing, the author, and NetGalley.

This review was originally posted on Books of My Heart


Review copy was received from NetGalley. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

I LOVE the Frankie Elkin series. Lisa Gardner has long been an author I have enjoyed and I am thrilled with this newer series. Here's what I had to say in earlier reviews which gives you a foundation about Frankie:
... Frankie is a recovering alcoholic with no special skills beyond tenacity and the fortitude to uproot and reinvent her life each time she finds a new case to solve. She tackles the "unimportant" missing, mostly teenagers, who are poor or minorities or both. It reminds me of the Equalizer except Frankie doesn't have the weapons, physical training or any kind of technical or financial resources. However, Frankie has some street smarts and she just doesn't give up. Oddly, she's a bit of a luddite with technology.

Frankie was taking a break after her last adventure. But she felt the need to take on a new missing person. She has some attachment to the guy who she spent her break with. She ponders it throughout the book, whether she could have any kind of actual relationship or have a home base.

The missing person is a woman, Sabera, who escaped from Kabul after it fell to the Taliban the second time. Her mother had died from cancer. Her father and brother were shot the day Kabul was overrun. Unfortunately, her vicious cousins did not die. She ended up with a math professor who was her father's friend. She has her daughter Zahra while on the run.

Now, four years later, Sabera and her "husband" and daughter are settling in Tucson, AZ. But Sabera has gone missing. Aliah is a refugee who has been here for 25 years and works in helping newer people settle. She is the one who asks Frankie to help. Frankie starts talking to the other various aid workers to try to find out what is happening.

Frankie always has to find a place to stay and some kind of work to support herself. She answers an ad and ends up staying at a tech guy's mansion and feeding his iguana and snakes, while he is out of town for a month. Daryl the chauffeur is available to her and helps, as does his parole officer, Roberta, and his chef, Genni.

The present day story is interspersed with the history in Afghanistan from the day Kabul fell until the present. More people around Sabera are killed or abducted. Frankie with her perseverance and intelligence gradually begins to unravel the players and motives. She has a team of allies in Daryl, Roberta and Genni, along with Aliah.

I really felt badly about what happened to the Afghan refugees when the Americans left. The consequences for many, especially women, were harsh. Gardner did some serious research and was able to give some realistic detail. It makes me sad to see people being so controlling of others for money, power, racism, and/or religion. It's better to come together to make everyone's life better.

I have enjoyed the Frankie Elkin series from Lisa Gardner. Another read that doesn’t disappoint.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Recent Afghan refugee Sabera Ahmadi was last seen exiting her place of work three weeks ago. The local police have yet to open a case, while her older, domineering husband seems unconcerned. Sabera's closest friend, however, is convinced Sabera would never willingly leave her three-year-old daughter. At her insistence, missing person expert Frankie Elkin agrees to take up the search through the broiling streets of Tucson ... just in time for a video of the young mother to surface—showing her walking away from the scene of a brutal double murder.

I love the Frankie Elkin series more and more with each book that's released! Frankie works on her own, finding lost people - the invisible kind no one cares about. She has no permanent home and is a bit of a rolling stone. She's a recovering alcoholic who has few personal possessions, and she doesn't let anything tie her down.

Wow! Kiss Her Goodbye is quite the nail-biter!! It was so hard to read about the people trying to leave Afghanistan and get to the USA go through. Utterly heartbreaking.

Lisa Gardner is a master at bringing her characters to life. Some were scary and some made me smile and laugh. I don't want to describe them until you've had the chance to read about them on your own, which is not easy for me. I want to shout about my favorites! *sigh*

Let me just say I absolutely loved Kiss Her Goodbye and I cannot wait to read the next one!!

#LisaGardner #SuspenseThriller #AfghanRefugees

Nice to see Lisa Gardner expanding her scope by writing Afghan refugees. Frankie Elkin is investing the disappearance of Sabera Ahmadi, and Afghan refugee resettled in Tucson. I particularly liked the chapters that focused on Sabera's life in Afghanistan. The pacing of the book was slow.

This is the 4th book in the Frankie Elkin series, and I've really enjoyed every single one of them. I ended up giving this one 4 stars. Frankie Elkin is a little lost herself, but she spends her time finding missing people. This time, she is looking for a missing Afghan refugee. Lisa Gardner clearly did a lot of research for this book. This series covers series topics but still manages to have light and fun moments. I love the humor and relationships built in this series.

I love the Frankie Elkin series from Lisa Gardner, and this one is another hit for me.

I think what I love most about the series is that to me, Frankie is a modern-day version of Kinsey Millhone. An investigator who uses very basic, stripped-down methods to locate missing people. (RIP Sue Grafton)

In this outing, Frankie deals with some very timely issues dealing with Afghan refugees. It's an eye opening read for sure, and another nail-biting page-turner.

Once again, I find myself looking forward to the next installment, curious to discover where Frankie’s path will lead.

A family is unable to escape their past

Sabera Ahmadi, the young mother of a three year old girl and an Afghan refugee, left her place of work in Tucson, Arizona, weeks earlier and has been neither seen nor heard from since. Her (controlling) husband Isaad seems oddly unconcerned by his wife's disappearance, and when the local police don't seem to be doing much to look into the matter Allah (a friend of Sabera) reaches out to missing person's specialist Frankie Elkin. Allah insists that Sabera would never abandon her daughter Zahra, and Frankie agrees to help, but the more Frankie looks into the family the more she finds that troubles her. Both Sabera and Isaad are highly intelligent and accomplished people, and their past history including their journey from their home country to the US is quite complex. When Isaad too disappears and Zahra is soon targeted as well, it is up to Frankie to find out what is happening to the Ahmadi family and why if she wants to stop a tragedy from occurring.
Kiss Her Goodbye is the fourth novel to feature recovering alcoholic Frankie Elkin, a compassionate and flawed protagonist who is fighting her personal demons while dedicating her time to help those who are forgotten by the world. The story alternates between Frankie's investigation in Arizona and entries from Sabera's journals which chronicle her time (and traumatic experiences) first in Afghanistan and later in refugee camps. The mystery itself is well crafted while author Lisa Gardner's exploration of the Afghani culture and the brutal reality that is the refugee experience adds emotional depth to the story. The locale marks a departure from Ms Gardner's usual settings but the intense heat and gritty streets of Tucson work well with the narrative. Their are some light moments woven into the tale as well, adding some relief to the dark themes. Kiss Her Goodbye can be read as a standalone, although those who have read other books featuring Frankie will have a better sense of her character's past. Gardner fans as well as readers of Linda Castillo, Karin Slaughter and Megan Miranda will certainly enjoy this suspenseful read. My thanks to NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing for allowing me access to the novel in exchange for my honest review.

This might be one of my favorite Lisa Gardner books so far. Thank you NetGalley for the ARC of this book. It opened my eyes to. World I knew nothing about and such tragic events that I was clueless about, while also being another great thriller!

Missing persons expert Frankie Elkin has been hired to find a missing Afghan refugee, Sabera. Her friend was asked to watch her young daughter and Sabera hasn't come back for her after weeks, so she is convinced that something bad has happened. Curiously, Sabera's husband doesn't seem concerned.

Frankie takes on a house sitting job, with unusual pets, and a chauffer who is also a ballroom dancer, with some unusual talents.

The story goes back to Afghanistan during the fall of Kabul. And even futher back to Sabera's childhood.

The complexity and twists make this a very interesting thriller.

I listened to the audio version of the book and I have the e-book. The narrator, Hillary Huber is outstanding. Her general performance is right on, but her accents and voices are so well done.

This was a new series for me. While it would have been nice to have background on Frankie from the prior books, it didn’t hinder my ability to understand the premise of the plot. The synopsis of the missing Afghan refugee intrigued me and the book exceeded expectations. There’s nothing in my life to give me a comparison of how it feels to be a refugee from your own country. The book is fictional but certainly gave me a clearer understanding of how that must hurt. There was so much misdirection, so many lies and so many covert operatives I could barely take a breath. The characters kept me guessing and there were only a few tatters of fabric I was able to string together. Mostly I guessed and predicted everything wrong. What a thrilling, tangled web of a story. My emotions ran high and low, I cheered for the underlings and despised the torturers. I’ve always enjoyed math and puzzles, this plot has that in spades. I will be reading more in this series.
Thanks to Grand Central Publishing (via NetGalley) for providing an Advance Reader Copy of “Kiss Her Goodbye” (Frankie Elkin Novel #4) by Lisa Gardner, published 08/12/2025. These thoughts and opinions are mine given honestly without compensation.

Lisa Gardner was a must read author for me before I began blogging. This woman can write and her love of research shows through the words on the pages of her books. I have not read any of the Frankie Elkin novels, but after reading Kiss Her Goodbye, I plan to remedy that. I was quickly hooked by the character. She’s tough, persistent, and once she sets her sights on something, she will stop at nothing to achieve her goals.

Kiss Her Goodbye bounces between Afghan refugee Sabera Ahmadi’s past and the present. When she goes missing, her best friend seeks Frankie Elkin’s help. Frankie has had a rough life and I love that she travels light, with a brown leather messenger bag and a small rolling suitcase. She’s not trained in finding people, but she is good at it.

Lisa Gardner writes about the Afghans that helped the Americans, especially those left behind. I wondered if what she shared was true…and it is. I found it fascinating. It lends a feeling of reality to the novel.

I love a book that twists and turns and takes me down an unexpected path where I am unable to foresee the outcome. I felt anger, dread, suspense and sorrow. I couldn’t stop reading, yet I didn’t want the story to end.

My thanks go out to Grand Central Publishing and Net Galley for the opportunity to read Kiss Her Goodbye by Lisa Gardner

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This was my first Frankie Elkin book by the author. I jumped into the series on book 3 and felt like I had missed some things about Frankie that had been covered in previous books. In spite that, I did enjoy this book. Frankie is asked to find an Afghan refugee who has gone missing. Comically she has also found a gig house sitting an iguana and a room full of boa constrictors. I tandem read the ebook and listened to the audio. The narrators brought the characters to life using, what sounds to my untrained ear, an authentic accent. I would recommend if you enjoy quick, uncomplicated mystery/thrillers.

Thank you to Grand Central Publishing, Hackett Audio and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this arc in exchange for an honest review.