My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Lisa Gardner has begun a new series, YAY, and I am in heaven. She’s an author who doesn’t need an introduction and after having read all her published books, fair to say, that along with Sandra Brown and recently C J Tudor, Lisa Gardner is one author whose books I will always buy blindly.
For once, Lisa Gardner didn’t kill me with an adrenaline burst. LOL!! The recent D D Warren novels, especially the ones with Flora Dane have all been giving me galloping hearts, literally. The taut-wire tension she manages to create is always so tight that I feel, one cannot take a breath or blink an eye. Book #1 in the Frankie Elkin series has comparatively started an ounce milder.
2 things are particularly interesting in this story, one, it is absolutely fantastic to get an idea of how a normal person who is not police or a licensed investigator without any formal training goes about her investigation, and secondly, the fact that there are people in real, as mentioned by the author, who do this without expecting any sort of remuneration is incredible beyond words.
Frankie Elkin lives a life of transience, devoting her time to find the missing people whose cases have gone cold. Having been an alcoholic, she understands the pitfalls and tragedies that strike most humans and is willing to go that extra length to find closure for families who are cursed to forever be in a state of limbo, never knowing if their missed one is alive or dead. The jobs are definitely not easy especially with having to work in pubs to earn her living. Mattapan in Boston is not an easy neighborhood to be in, but Angelique Badeau has been missing for 11 months and the police have no leads to move forward. 14 cases where Frankie has found the missing persons, dead but with Angel, she has to believe in her one chance to find someone alive as becomes progressively clearer in the case.
Like always, Lisa Gardener delivers a thumping thriller with a host of secondary characters each of them lovable and endearing including a demonic cat called Piper. Just like the people in Mattapan warming up to Frankie, the reader can’t help but love her character, battling her guilt and always fighting the addiction that may cripple her hard-won sobriety. Attending AA meetings in every town she works, Frankie’s struggle against addiction is an inspiring story by itself. Detective Latham reminded me of Bobby Dodge, a character, in probably the first book in the DD Warren series.
Frankie Elkin was supposed to be a stand-alone novel, but I am really glad that the author has decided to continue with the series, Book #2 One Step Too Far is to be released soon, and well, no points in guessing that I wanna read it NOW! All fans of police procedural or investigative thrillers, don’t miss out on any book by Lisa Gardner, coz she is just one of the BEST out there.
Exciting⛈️⛈️⛈️⛈️⛈️
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.
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Rain'n'books 
That’s cool that this has been turned into a series. I really enjoyed Before She Disappears, too. Wonderful review!
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Thank you Tessa, I was just waiting to read this before the next one got released. Loved it!
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