Review: Before She Disappeared

 

Frankie Elkin is on a mission. Several, actually.

She wants to find a missing teenager while staying sober and dealing with demons from her past.

Lisa Gardner brings Frankie to life in "Before She Disappeared" and, despite her flaws -- or maybe because of them -- I couldn't help but fall in love with her.

The main focus of the story is Frankie searching for Haitian immigrant Angelique Badeau who disappeared after school 11 months earlier. The police don't want her interfering, but she does manage to get close to one of the detectives who gives her more information that he knows he should.

Angelique's family is skeptical at first, too, but they soon warm up to her, and start depending on her, especially when her brother discovers some clues to his sister's whereabouts.

When Frankie connects another girl's disappearance to Angelique's an already confusing set of circumstances becomes even more confusing for the people trying to put all the pieces together.

One of the things I loved so much about this book is that I couldn't figure out what was happening and had no idea what Angelique and the other girl (Livia) had gotten themselves into. Sometimes I have the story figured out with 100 or so pages to go, which makes the end less than satisfying. "Before She Disappeared" left me guessing during the entire book, and not just about the missing girls. I won't give spoilers about the other mysteries.