I am a fan of Lisa Gardner and have read many of her books, unfortunately this isn’t one of her best works. It lacked the usual intensity that keeps me engaged. However, it was good and it wouldn’t stop me reading more.

I normally love Lisa Gardner. I have been back and read her other books. This one just had something missing. The story wasnt great. It didn't pull me in and was a chore to finish.

I think I maybe in the minority when I say that I was disappointed in this book. For me it lacked her usual fireworks. I was waiting to be gripped, sat on the edge of my seat and reading late into the night. It never happened. Saying that I am sure other readers will enjoy it more just not for me .
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC in return for giving an honest review.

EXCERPT: This is how most cases start. With a bubble of desperate hope and tentative trust. Where things go from here, how Guerline and Emmanuel might view me months from now . . .

Emmanuel walks me back downstairs. He doesn't speak a word, relying on the rigid set of his shoulders to radiate disapproval.

'You love Angelique,' I state softly when we reach the lobby. She's a good older sister. She looks out for you.'

He glares at me, but I see a bright sheen in his eyes. The pain he's trying hard not to show.

'You really done this before?' he asks roughly.

'Many times.'

'How many people have you actually found?'

'Fourteen.'

He purses his lips, clearly taken aback by that number.

'Goodnight Emmanuel. And if you think of anything I should know.' I stick out my hand. This time he takes it.

Then I exit the triple, out into the crisp fall night, where the sun has set. Bright lights wink in the distance. But on this block no streetlights are working. Not the best idea for a lone woman to be walking around after dark, but I hardly have a choice.

I square my shoulders and head briskly back toward Stoney's, grateful it hadn't occurred to Emmanuel to ask the next logical question.

Not just how many people I'd found, but how many people I'd found alive.

None.

At least, not yet.

ABOUT: 'BEFORE SHE DISAPPEARED': 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.

MY THOUGHTS: Can someone please explain to me how and why I have never previously read anything by this author of twenty books? Because I am sure I don't know. What I do know is - that is about to change!

Before She Disappeared is the first of two books featuring Frankie Elkin, an alcoholic with enough baggage to make a porter shudder. She keeps her demons at bay by focusing her energies on investigating disappearances that are cold cases.
To fund her search, she tends bar, something she is very good at. She regularly attends AA meetings, and has nightmares that gave me the willies just reading about them, never mind having them invade my sleep night after night. And just in case that isn't enough, she is sharing her accommodation with Piper, an attack cat, and just one more to add to the list resenting Frankie's intrusion.

Frankie doesn't endear herself to the police, who resent her involvement and accuse her of many things including trying to rip off the families of the missing. But what Frankie has on her side is a kind and caring heart and the ability to ask the right questions.

Before She Disappeared is a fast paced and gripping story that kept me immersed throughout as the search for one missing girl turns into a search for two missing girls; the second never reported missing by her family or her school. As Frankie slowly builds up a picture of Angelique's life, little snippets of Frankie's back story are revealed.

This is a story that has something for everyone. There are two incredibly bright and talented young girls, living in poverty in a crime ridden Boston neighbourhood, determined to rise above their backgrounds and make something of themselves. So there is hope. There are thrills as Frankie is warned off her endeavours to find Angelique and Livia. There are chills and dread as it becomes apparent just how vulnerable these young girls are. There is sadness, and joy. Mystery, crime and suspense. The characters are realistic and beautifully crafted, their stories ones that happen every day. Gardner has taken these stories and written a moving and thrilling book that highlights the plight of the 'forgotten' missing - those who come from a background of poverty, from high crime areas where the police have more important issues to deal with than looking for some teenage girl who has probably run of with some boy.

This is no ordinary missing person story!

Gardner's author notes at the end of the book are worth reading as she explains what inspired her to write Before She Disappeared.

I may be late discovering this author, but I now have a lot of backtitles to catch up on. And Frankie Elkin #2 to look forward to.

⭐⭐⭐⭐.5

#BeforeSheDisappeared #NetGalley

I: @lisagardnerbks @randomhouse

T: @LisaGardnerBks @RandomHouse

#contemporaryfiction #crime #mystery #suspense #thriller


THE AUTHOR: Lisa Gardner, a #1 New York Times bestselling thriller novelist, began her career in food service, but after catching her hair on fire numerous times, she took the hint and focused on writing instead. A self-described research junkie, she has transformed her interest in police procedure and criminal minds into a streak of internationally acclaimed novels, published across 30 countries.

Lisa lives in New Hampshire where she spends her time with an assortment of canine companions. When not writing, she loves to hike, garden, snowshoe and play cribbage.

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Random House UK, Cornerstone, Century via Netgalley for providing a digital ARC of Before She Disappeared by Lisa Gardner for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

For an explanation of my rating system please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the about page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com

This review is also published on Twitter, Amazon, Instagram and my webpage

When I’m struggling to pick my next read, I always seem to go for a mystery thriller. This may not have been my favourite, but I really enjoyed trying to solve the mystery with the main character!

Frankie Elkin is a recovering alcoholic trying to move on from her tragic past. She dedicates her life to searching for missing people the world has stopped looking for. Her newest case? Angelique Badeau, a Haitian teenager who vanished from her high school months earlier.

Whilst this didn’t WOW me, it was still an enjoyable read. Frankie is a complex character who clearly has a backstory involving trauma, but I honestly feel like we weren’t given enough information on her to understand her actions/thought processes. This also made the book feel like a sequel as there were references to previous events that seemed important to know. Regardless of these issues, I still enjoyed the story. It was interesting to see Frankie’s interactions with the police and how her abilities to analyse the case were so different to theirs. I didn’t manage to predict the outcome, which is always a bonus, and it certainly wasn’t disappointing!

Overall, I’d say that this is a perfectly okay thriller, but it just lacked somewhat in the introduction of Frankie’s character.

Many thanks to the author, publisher and Netgalley for sending me a copy of this book in return for an honest review.

First of all I would like to thanks Net Galley for the opportunity to read this book.

It was the first one by Lisa Gardner that I have read. I quite enjoyed it, but found the concept a bit far fetched - a middle aged recovering alcoholic woman who travels the country attempting to find people that have disappeared and the police have been unable to trace! She was quite likeable though, and you wanted her to succeed. It would have been nice if she had stayed at the end!

Again, don't let my rating influence your reading choices.
Frankie, an ordinary woman, is solving cold cases, cases that police couldn't?!? Really? For me is too unrealistic, but maybe it was not a good moment for me.
Thank you Netgalley for this book.

Lisa Gardner's writing is just plain captivating. I was hooked from the first sentence on. It is such a complex and highly emotional story, so human. Her characters are deep seemingly without any author's stress, her prose just keeps flowing - again seemingly effortlessly. Although the story is not a recount of a true crime, it does feel that way. The topic is painful, trying to find a lost child, but Gardner manages it to handle well, balancing emotions, facts, and the intricate cloth of family. You can tell that an immense research, lots of thoughts went into this plot, the characters, their actions and reactions.

One of the best crime novels I have ever read.

I should have read the authors notes before I read the book. The fact that a middle age white women can pick up a cold case and solve it when the entire police force couldn’t, just annoyed me. But these things happen and the author had found a whole raft of amateurs who do just this, ordinary everyday people and this is what gave her the idea for the book.
Frankie Elkin, a middle aged white women and recovering alcoholic, looks for missing people, cold cases and people the world has stopped looking for. She has found 14 missing people so far but they have all been dead. When she reads about a young coloured girl called Angelique who has been missing for nearly a year, she travels to Boston to look into the case. She scores herself a job in a pub in the same area where Angelique lived and went to school. Not a very nice area but the job comes with a room and a roommate in the form of a feral cat. Frankie makes contact with the lead detective from the case Lotham and soon gets under his skin as she starts to unravel the case, finding out more than he ever did.
This appears to be the first in a new series. The book just didn’t gel for me, it felt like a cross of Lee Childs nomadic main character and Gregg Hurwitz crusading avenger. Maybe the series will grow stronger with each book, but I preferred her earlier books.
#netgalley #beforeshedisappeared

Great characters and a very original plot - not your average mystery or motives, that’s for sure. Make sure you read the author’s note for her inspiration as this makes the whole book more meaningful.

Wow what a read, full of twists and turns. A great read that kept me wanting to read more. One of the main characters Frankie, was so well written I felt like I was in her shoes.

I really enjoyed following the story of our main character, Frankie. She has flaws like we all do but how she deals with them was well written and engaging. It felt like reading about someone who had to help other people in order to heal themselves.
Thank you to Netgalley and Lisa Gardner for the opportunity to review this book.

I enjoyed this, it was different than the usual crime thriller and had a unique plot. The main character was likable and the author gave her more depth as the story unfolded. I read this quite quickly and it was easy to get into. I have read other books by the author and have enjoyed them and would certainly be willing to read more.

This was very enjoyable and I'm looking forward to more from Frankie. I particularly liked the fact the author had been inspired by real-life amateur sleuths who search for missing persons.

I struggled with this book. It wasn’t fast paced enough for me but once it got going I did enjoy it.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC in return for an honest and unbiased opinion.

Before She Disappeared by Lisa Gardner is a fast paced thriller recounting the disappearance of a young woman and following the subsequent investigation. The main character, Frankie follows missing persons cases and takes up the investigation herself, as an amateur. I think the character of Frankie is complex and she appears to be very much a loner. However, she is likeable and I’d definitely read further stories based on her investigations.

I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a well written mystery thriller.

My thanks to Netgalley and Penguin Random House for the opportunity to read this book.

I personally didn't hugely enjoy this book and was disappointed as I loved the DD Warren series so much. It is well written with good characterisation but I wasn't enthralled and found it to be too contrived. I didn't gel with the main character and perhaps I was just not in the right frame of mind for reading about someone troubled and battling with her past.

I loved this book. Frankie was a brilliant character which made me fly through this. Would highly recommend this book to anyone.

Frankie Elkin is a recovering alcoholic who roams from one place to another, searching for missing people. She needs this to give her purpose and ultimately to fill a missing void in her life.

She is now in Mattapan, Boston on the search for missing schoolgirl Angelique Badeau. She is met with distrust by the family and barriers by the police.

However, it is not long before she manages to uncover valuable information about Angelique’s disappearance and the hunt for her steps up.

A lengthy book with various twists. It kept me interested, though I am not sure some of the facts were credible - Frankie had too much of a sixth sense and was better at this than an entire police force. That aside, once I reminded myself that this was fiction, I did enjoy it very much.

Before She Disappeared is the second book that I’ve read by Lisa Gardner, both very different (the other was When You See Me - if you haven’t read it, do!) and although completely different, I think her writing style is excellent.

I rate this book 4 stars 🌟🌟🌟🌟

Before She Disappeared by Lisa Gardener introduces an off beat almost hobo detective.

Frankie Elkin has no possessions, no home, no ties or connections just a passion for finding missing people. She travels from town to town tracking down missing people, up to now she has only found the hidden bodies of victims, is this case going to be any different? Frankie arrives in a rough neighbourhood of Boston on a mission to find a missing Haitian teenager only to discover that neither the family or the police are comfortable with her uncovering what might have happened and the local drug gangs have a few things to say as well.

This is good, it’s twisty and well paced. I enjoyed it and am looking forward to Frankie making a return.