BEFORE SHE DISAPPEARED Book Review

Before She Disappeared¹ by Lisa Gardner, audiobook, 12h 7m Synopsis from Audible: 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.

BOOK REVIEW: I think this book was recommended by multiple people in the Creepy Book Club and it was available for free on Audible to listen to (if you have a premium subscription) so I grabbed it. I didn't read what it was about so I had no idea what to expect. While I did find the narrator's voice to be a little irritating at times (I have this thing about when female narrators do male voices and vice versa...don't even get me started on the narrator for the Harry Potter books once he has to start voicing Luna Lovegood...I cringe just thinking about it), but overall the story line was good. There were times that my train of thought would take me down a road that Frankie ended up down that made me wonder how cops could have missed it but it's always different from the outside looking in right? I enjoyed getting to know the people in the story, mainly Angelique's family, and how much Frankie got them involved.

I rate the audio book a 4.5 out of 5 stars but the book overall a 5 out of 5. Why the difference? As I said, I listened to this book and the narration plays a huge part of the experience in my opinion and when she made Angelique's teenage brother talk with a nasally almost Steve Urkel kind of voice, I just can't get passed that. That is why for the first time I'm giving two ratings because if I had read the book that wouldn't have been there to bother me!

4.5/5 Stars

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