Before She Disappeared

 Author : Lisa Gardener

Plot:

Before She disappeared is a brilliant mystery which keeps the reader hooked on till the very end. Lisa Gardner’s protagonist, Frankie Elkin who calls herself a middle-aged ordinary white woman is recovering alcoholic with a tumultuous past. Haunted by her past misdeeds and forever struggling to find inner tranquility, Frankie is now addicted to a new cause, finding missing people whom the cops have abandoned. The people who are trivial, their existence wiped off quietly from this world because the cops could not trace them or were too busy to pursue their case. Frankie looks for her own healing trying to help these missing people.

Frankie travels to different places chasing such missing people, usually she picks up cases in small town or country side, where a civilian can take law in her own hands and act like an amateur detective.

But one case brings her to Mattapan in Boston, a rather run-down neighborhood predominantly occupied by the Haitian population. A Haitian girl and a teenager, Angelique Bandeau, who lived in Mattapan with her aunt and brother, has been missing for eleven months. She was last seen exiting her high school and then disappeared miraculously, evading the intelligence of the surveillance cameras and the telephone logs, leaving the cops perplexed.

Frankie arrives in this largely Haitian and African American neighborhood and finds herself a foreigner in this land because of her skin color. She quickly finds a job in a local pub and makes good acquaintances. She teams up with the local Boston Police Detective, Lotham and begins her rigorous investigation, until one day she realizes that she has put her own life in danger and the next person to disappear from this world could be herself.

The intriguing element in this mystery is unveiling the nature of the crime itself rather than the people behind the crime. It takes a while for Frankie to figure out why the girl was kidnapped and what she was involved in. In the neighborhood filled with drug dealers, arm robbers and human traffickers, Frankie coerces through the complex network of the underground mafia and fraudsters to find the root cause of the crime.

On a parallel track runs Frankie’s battle with her inner demons seeking validation to her own existence is as intense as her combat with the criminals who are responsible for the disappearance of Angelique. The book presents various shades of characters, few faulty, few endearing. Mattapan houses a mixed bunch of residents, some who want to help, reach out and protect their community and others who are selfish and do not care an inch for goodness and welfare of this world. The plot starts slow but after first 50 pages, it is extremely gripping. I could easily finish it off in one sitting yesterday. Overall, a very fast paced thriller and a brilliant cozy mystery. Highly recommended.

Rating: 👍👍👍👍