“Before She Disappeared,” by Lisa Gardner (Dutton)
Frankie Elkin is a nomad. Owning only what she can carry, she wanders from town to town hunting for missing people whom the police have been unable to find.
She is neither a police officer nor a private detective. She has no training for this work and asks nothing in return for it. But in the ten years or so since it became her obsession, she has become good at it. So far, she has found 10 missing people.
Sadly, none of them were found alive.
As Lisa Gardner’s “Before She Disappeared” opens, Frankie is hoping to break that string of bad luck in the largely Haitian
Frankie, who can’t afford to eat unless she works, talks her way into a bartending job in the
Sometimes working alone and sometimes with the detective, she gradually uncovers a tangle of fake I.D. forgers, street-level drug dealers, counterfeit cash passers and human traffickers who may or may not have something to do with the girl’s disappearance. Still worse, mid-way into the investigation the missing girl’s best friend also goes missing.
This book, the
___
Bruce DeSilva, winner of the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Award, is the author of the Mulligan crime novels including “The Dread Line.”
Bruce Desilva, The Associated Press