Kiss Her Goodbye: A Frankie Elkin Novel by Lisa Gardner

I just finished Lisa Gardner's Kiss Her Goodbye and I’m still turning it over in my mind. From the very first chapter, I was pulled into Frankie Elkin’s world again. This time, she’s searching for an Afghan woman who has disappeared and left behind her young child. It’s a story full of heartbreak, courage, and resilience, and it feels incredibly timely.

What I love about Frankie is how flawed and real she is. She’s stubborn and reckless at times, but at her core she’s driven by compassion, and that makes her such a compelling character to follow. Alongside the darkness of the case, Lisa Gardner gives us those small, lighter moments that let you breathe, including Frankie’s unusual pet-sitting arrangement in a mansion full of reptiles, which made me smile in the middle of all the tension.

This book has everything I want in a thriller: pacing, emotional depth, and a character I can’t stop rooting for. 

Still See You Everywhere by Lisa Gardner

"Still See You Everywhere" by Lisa Gardner is the third book in the Frankie Elkin series. This one is set on a tropical island. I love Lisa, I love Frankie, and I love islands. That would have been enough to persuade me to read it, except that everything by Lisa Gardner is on my preorder list by default anyway. 

If you still need convincing, here's a list:

• a cool setting
• super quirky characters
• relentless pace.

Blurb:

A lifetime missing. Just three weeks to find her. The brand new thriller from the New York Times no. 1 bestselling author. A remote tropical island. Countless dangerous secrets. No way to call help. 

Missing persons specialist Frankie Elkin is on an isolated island off the coast of Hawaii. Her mission- to find Lani, the missing sister of a Death Row serial killer known as the Beautiful Butcher who is awaiting execution in just three weeks' time. According to the Beautiful Butcher's sources, Lani is being held captive by her millionaire ex-boyfriend on the island. The only way to gain access is for Frankie to go undercover. 

But can Frankie really trust the word of a serial killer? Plus, this island is no paradise with deadly creatures and suspicious co-workers at every turn, and an incoming tropical storm about to cut her off from the outside world. Could this be Frankie Elkin's most dangerous case yet?

One Step Too Far

"One Step Too Far" by Lisa Gardner sees the return of Frankie Elkin, and that's really all you need to know before you rush out to buy a copy (or open a new tab to buy a copy, whatever your preference- mine is to get it in audio format and I can tell you, the performer does a good job). 

For those who need to know the plot, it's about finding people gone missing in the mountainous forests of the Popo Agie Wilderness in Wyoming. There is a bachelor party, secrets, and a delightful search dog called Daisy.

Still need more? Here's the official blurb:

Meet Frankie Elkin, an everyday, average person who specializes in finding missing people. When the locals have given up, when the media has never bothered to care, Frankie takes on the challenge. Her latest mission has brought her to Mattapan, Boston, to find a missing Haitian teen. Eleven months later, Angelique Badeau's disappearance remains a mystery. What happened to the quiet, studious teen? Frankie learns quickly the dangers of asking too many questions, but that won't stop her from learning the truth behind what happened before she disappeared.

Before She Disappeared - Lisa Gardner

"Before She Disappeared" by Lisa Gardner features a brand new main character, Frankie Elkin. Frankie spends her life working menial jobs and searching for missing people the police has given up on and the public forgotten. I love Frankie and I hope this is the beginning of a beautiful new series.

The book itself is an emotional roller coaster, with several important themes (families, immigration, BIPOC, LGBQT+), a fast moving plot and a homicidal feline. Tightly written, it's a read that's impossible to put down.

The blurb:

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.

Never Tell - Lisa Gardner

"Never Tell" by Lisa Gardner is the 10th book in the D.D. Warren series. As usual, it explores the themes of survivors of crime, motherhood, independent women - all within the framework of a thriller.

As usual, a well-paced read with 3D characters. It was good to see Flora Dane return to the pages and to have her story fleshed out. I look forward to that thread continuing in future books.

The blurb:
A man is dead, shot three times in his home office. But his computer has been shot twelve times, and when the cops arrive, his pregnant wife is holding the gun. 

D.D. Warren arrives on the scene and recognizes the woman--Evie Carter--from a case many years back. Evie's father was killed in a shooting that was ruled an accident. But for D.D., two coincidental murders is too many. 

Flora Dane sees the murder of Conrad Carter on the TV news and immediately knows his face. She remembers a night when she was still a victim--a hostage--and her captor knew this man. Overcome with guilt that she never tracked him down, Flora is now determined to learn the truth of Conrad's murder. 

But D.D. and Flora are about to discover that in this case the truth is a devilishly elusive thing. As layer by layer they peel away the half-truths and outright lies, they wonder: How many secrets can one family have?

Look for me

"Look for me" by Lisa Gardner continues the story of detective D.D. Warren and survivor Flora Dane. Read it for the thriller part, or for the excellent commentary on social services and what it means to have a perfect family.

Blurb:
The home of a family of five is now a crime scene: four of them savagely murdered, one—a sixteen-year-old girl—missing. Was she lucky to have escaped? Or is her absence evidence of something sinister? Detective D. D. Warren is on the case—but so is survivor-turned-avenger Flora Dane. Seeking different types of justice, they must make sense of the clues left behind by a young woman who, whether as victim or suspect, is silently pleading, Look for me. 

Right Behind You

"Right behind you" is Lisa Gardner's latest book. The local shooting gets personal for FBI Profiler Quincy and his wife Rainie, and probably because of it, this novel is more of a character-driven drama than a thriller. A fast, enjoyable read.

Find Her (Detective D.D. Warren Book 8) by Lisa Gardner

(Have I ever mentioned how long it took me to get into Lisa Gardner's books? I read samples of her texts in writing courses, and I loved her voice, yet every time I picked up one of her stories, the violence and inherent sadness in the blurb made me put it right down again.

Eventually I succumbed. Started with "Catch me", because the writeup seemed the least tragic. Loved both the story and the respectfully gentle, non-sensationalist way, in which Ms Gardner deals with brutal events. Read the rest of the series in random order, which messed up the character arc a little bit, particularly D.D.'s love life, but it didn't matter. Her books rock.)

So, "Find Her". I read it as soon as it was published, back in February. As always with this author, I got a plot full of intrigue, originality, heart, real yet quirky characters, and a pace that kept me up the whole night, turning the pages with one hand and propping up my eyelids with the other.

Lisa Garnder's series

I'm reading Lisa Gardner all wrong. I started with Catch Me, which is fairly late in the Detective D.D. Warren series. I followed up with other books in this line, mostly reading the more recent ones first, probably because I could get hold of them as audio books and listen to them while communting to work.

When they ran out, I moved onto the Tessa Leoni series. It's only three books, so now I'm on Rainie Conner - again, mostly backwards. I've just finished The Third Victim.

For those of you who'd like more order in their lives, have a look here: http://lisagardner.com/books. But it's not as simple as it looks, for the main characters sometimes appear in other charaters' series as cameos....

Lisa Gardner is a bit like Yvonne Walus, right?

Lisa Gardner writes thrillers as herself and romances as Alicia Scott. I love her already! She can be funny (see her Writing Day), she can be heart-breaking (and that’s the thrillers, not the romances). Her dialogues rock. Her characters are so real I feel I know them personally, even if they are tertiary ones like Miss Patsy from Live To Tell. And her plots keep you glued to the pages way, way, way past bedtime.

I’m listening to one of her thrillers in the car this week. In the morning, I can’t wait for my daily commute to work. Weekend tomorrow. Drat.