Lisa Gardner

 Fiction 2022/ 416 pages

Tim and his buddies go backpacking (with lots of beer!) for his bachelor party, into a remote section of the Wyoming mountains.  But Tim never returns.  Five years later, Tim's dad Martin is still searching for him or his body in remote wilderness areas.  On this particular journey, we have Martin; Tim's three friends who were with him that fateful night; Nemeth, a local guide for this remote section;  Bob, whose hobby is being a Sasquatch seeker;  Luciana and her tracking dog Daisy; and our main character and narrator, Frankie, who really calls no place home, but seeks missing persons as a unpaid profession of sorts.  Except Frankie has never been in the wilderness before.  She has done all of her tracking in cities, especially inner cities, where she finds the bodies of people who have OD'd, or are victims of violence.

Gardner's characters have depth and personality.  Unfortunately, it took the whole first half io the book to set the context and help us really get to know her characters. There are simply too, many, and some seem not necessary to the story line.  Of course, Frankie is a delight right from the start, with her adventurous spirit and total lack of knowledge about how to survive a week in the woods.

Halfway in, the mystery began to take over the plot, and things became exciting until the very end, when all is discovered.  Except the violence was too gruesome for me.

This is a good, solid mystery, with suspense, and terror, and humor.  But it was not my cup of tea.  I will not read another Lisa Gardner.  She spent too much time in context setting, sacrificing a bit of the actual mystery search and discovery of clues.  And I don't need her violence.

The story kept me engaged, especially the second half.  I recommend this with a grain of salt ... Mystery lovers may quite appreciate it!

November 2023