Before She Disappeared by Lisa Gardner

Dutton, 400 pages, $27

Frankie Elkin is a great character. Because author Lisa Gardner knows her way around a book, she has created a memorable private investigator, not that that is the designation Frankie gives herself.

Frankie is haunted by events that are slowly revealed, but don't necessarily have anything to do with the book's central mystery. Right away Gardner tells you Frankie is an alcoholic. If you have read Lawrence Block’s Matthew Scudder series, alcoholism is a big part of who Scudder is. We read one of the Scudder books for MBTB’s Other Book Group, and many people felt as though they had attended an AA meeting afterwards. There is definitely an authenticity about alcoholism in both the Scudder series and “Before She Disappeared” that cannot be denied. While it is not intrinsic to the plot of Gardner’s book, it defines top, bottom, and sideways who Frankie is.

As if on a mission — and who can argue with her — Frankie seeks to discover missing people. Up until she recently moved to Boston to look for teenage Angelique Lovelie Badeau, she had found fourteen missing people. None of them found alive. Frankie is looking to break that demoralizing record by finding Angelique alive if possible.

Frankie, a slight, forty- or fifty-something white woman, moves into Angelique’s neighborhood. It is very Black and in many places evidence of the big part poverty and drugs play in the neighborhood culture. So Frankie stands out painfully. It is a foregone conclusion that Frankie will find it difficult to get Angelique’s family and community to talk with her. But Frankie has learned a trick or two in the ten years she has been wandering the country looking to save souls. (And maybe her soul while she’s at it.)

Despite the suspicion that greets her and long odds, Frankie digs out a toehold both in the case and within the community. Although she occasionally/frequently takes shortcuts to meet people and gain information, she invariably lets the police know what she is up to. Not that they approve. Especially Detective Lotham whose case it is. Not that he has had many breakthroughs in the year since Angelique has been missing. Not that he can afford to turn down Frankie’s help. Even if she is a civilian.

Frankie establishes an uneasy truce with the neighborhood. Despite the fact that she is an alcoholic, she is by trade a bartender. So she gets a job in Stoney’s bar, with a rentable room above, complete with an ill-tempered, sharp-clawed cat. Making acquaintances one wary person at a time, she manages to learn who she needs to interview.

Frankie has heart. She’s forthright, compassionate but clear-eyed, and street smart based on years of experience. Slowly, she chips away at the mystery of what happened when Angelique walked out of her high school one day a year ago and disappeared.

Do I think, realistically speaking, a strange, small white woman could engage with neighbors — friendly and not — in a Black neighborhood in Boston and break open a long-standing mystery? No. But it doesn’t matter what might be realistic, because Lisa Gardner has a page-turning, relatable, emotional story to tell, and I enjoyed the journey.

Winterkill by Ragnar Jónasson

Orenda Books, 276 pages, $15.95 (paperback)

Ari Thór Arason began his stint as a police officer in Siglufjör∂ur, Iceland, in 2009’s “False Note,” according to the venerable website Stop, You’re Killing Me (www.stopyourekillingme.com). Although that volume has not been translated into English, the rest have been and Ragnar Jónasson has amassed an English-speaking following.

Unlike books set in the main Icelandic city of Reykjavik, Jónasson’s Siglufjör∂ur books may seem slow-moving and quaint. The northern town of Siglufjör∂u is slow-moving and, especially before the new tunnel was opened to allow traffic during the snowy winter months, was trapped in time because of its isolation. Now there are ski venues attracting winter tourists and quaint shops attracting summer tourists.

Ari Thór is a city boy from Reykjavik. He was dismayed with his assignment to Siglufjör∂ur but grew more comfortable with the help of his superior, Tómas. Now Tómas has left for Reykjavik, in an irony not lost on Ari, and Ari is the boss, such as it is. Even after seven years or so, Ari still doesn’t feel much like a local. The “real” locals know family histories and stories going back generations. It appears, however, that Ari has finally shaken the sobriquet of “The Reverend,” awarded him when he first arrived because he once attended a seminary. Progress is in baby steps in that part of Iceland.

Another thread flowing through the books is of Ari Thór’s love life. He has had an on and off relationship with Kristín. They share a three-year-old son. Kristín and Stefnir (which the handy guide tells us is pronounced “STEB-neer”) have come for a visit over the Easter holiday. Ari has some unrealistic hope they will want to move back from Sweden where Kristín is studying currently.

That’s the background. Now here’s the mystery.

Late one night, a nineteen-year-old girl, Unnur, is found on the sidewalk below a house which was converted into apartments. It very much looks as though she jumped from the balcony. Unnur’s mother, Salvör, insists her daughter was a good girl with no problems. When Salvör’s ex-husband shows up he is aggressively insistent that someone has murdered his daughter and Ari needs to find the murderer or heads will roll. It is the first major crime for Ari to solve without his mentor by his side.

Unnur was studious and shy. She apparently didn’t have a good reason to be in the apartment building except to jump off the balcony. There is nothing to indicate murder. But Ari’s conscience will not let “I don’t know” suffice as an explanation to the distraught parents. Through luck and perseverance, he digs toeholds into the case and discovers anomalies.

One of the reasons Ari and Kristín broke up was supposedly because his job took up too much time. What appeared to be a straightforward suicide seems to blossom into something more when a patient with dementia in a nursing home writes, “She was murdered,” on his wall. How will Ari balance his growing case with the short amount of time he has to re-bond with his young son?

In the process of describing Ari’s case, author Jónasson gives us a little more of a tour of the surrounding area — something at which he is very good — and makes the cold, forbidding north seem more like a wilderness paradise than ever. Then, of course, Jónasson throws in a wicked snowstorm. Not even the intrepid locals want to venture out.

This is not a cozy mystery, but the winter storms, power outages, most excellent bakery, fancy hotel, and polite locals would all be at home in a cozy mystery. Take everything you can from this book, because it may be the last Ari Thór episode. I have liked everything he has written, especially the Hulda Hermanssdottir series.

Exit by Belinda Bauer

Atlantic Monthly Press, 336 pages, $26

“Exit” is a thriller with humor. It’s not a fast-paced book; it is a well-paced one. There are quite a few characters, but you’ll sort them out. (Take notes!) Belinda Bauer is an author with kindness to spare. Her characters are quirky but human, mean but human, smart or average or sly but human. Before you know it, Belinda Bauer has packed a whole lot of story into her book.

Felix Pink has an alias. To those in the business of helping people out of this world, he is known as “John.” Every “Exiteer” has an alias. Anonymity protects people whose calling it is to assist people with terminal ailments with taking their own lives. The small group of people who have become the Exiteers somehow were discovered by Geoffrey who tries to organize them. He schedules the appointments and assigns a pair of Exiteers to each case.

Felix is an older gentleman and he meets twenty-something Amanda, a first-timer. Together they travel to keep an appointment with Charles Cann. When they get to Cann’s house, they find an older man in the front bedroom gasping for breath. He is ashen and looks to be in some pain. He can’t respond to them, but the Exiteer’s release paper is on his bedside table, the nitrous oxide canister, with which he will quietly slip into death, is beside the bed, and his will is there as well. Everything seems ready to go. Uh, oh. (Well, there has to be an “uh-oh” because that’s how you get a story.) The mask slips away from Mr. Cann’s grasp. Amanda helpfully grabs it and puts it in Mr. Cann’s hand. Felix gasps. Exiteers are not allowed to help with the suicide in any way. What Exiteers do is not illegal but it is a fine line between watching a person die and murder.

It shouldn’t be a surprise to find that the wrong Mr. Cann has died. As Amanda and Felix are leaving, an even older man down the hall asks Felix what took the Exiteers so long. He has been waiting for them to begin his suicide.

Uh, oh.

Felix is a kind soul with a wish to do good and a need to feel useful. His wife died a few years ago and his dog, Mabel, is his sole comfort. He was a tad depressed and aimless before finding the Exiteers. Even the cheerful woman who lives next door, Miss Knott, makes him want to run away. The Exiteers seemed a godsend. Now, with the erroneous death, his mission in life seems doomed and his final resting place will be a prison cell.

Instead of calling the police once he realized the error in identity, Felix pushes Amanda out the front door and tells her to leave, that he will take care of everything. Then he hightails it out the back door. Once he gets home, the law-abiding Felix expects the police to arrive to arrest him at any minute. He tries to prepare for that. But it appears that is not such a simple process. For one thing, Felix worries about Charles Cann, left to his own devices with a dead man in his house and not a flipping thing he can do to hasten his own death.

Although there are a few village names mentioned, I have no idea just where this action takes place in England. The police do eventually become involved but which precinct is a mystery. (You are invited to enlighten me if you figure it out.) Constable Calvin Bridge is seconded to DCI Kirsty King to help with the investigation of who murdered Mr. Albert Cann. Albert’s son Reggie is shocked. Charles, Albert's father, is mad. The housecleaner is useless.

PC Bridge is a local lad and he knows a lot of people. We follow him as he tries to get food out of a vending machine in the station, place bets at the local betting shop, and faithfully accomplish the boring tasks assigned him by DCI King. He is a real sweetheart.

Police and locals pass in and out of the various stories. If you have read Belinda Bauer before, you will know that no one is extraneous. And that is, in a nutshell, the joy of reading her stories.

About Felix walking Mabel in the neighborhood, Bauer says this:

Miss Knott was always interrupting their walks to engage him about Mabel, as if she were a Crufts* winner and not a scrubbing-brush mutt with breath that could strip paint.

* British dog show.

Felix is seventy-five years old and he is surprised by how that affects his life:

Felix Pink’s days of buying clothes were over. He had bought his last three-pack of Y-fronts a year ago, and the socks he had now would see him out. It was a strange feeling — that he would be outlived by his socks.

Although it had already happened with other things, of course.

The last house.

The last car.

Felix wondered how finely he might judge it. How low he could go. The last can of shaving foam? The last jar of jam? He sometimes wondered whether his last dying thought would be of a half-pint of milk going to waste in his fridge.

Belinda Bauer is a treat. Her book is genuinely pleasing. MBTB star!

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

Riverhead Books, 352 pages, $27 (c2020)

This is not a mystery, but it is one of the best books I’ve read over the last year or two. Brit Bennett has created a strong story about identity and what it is that makes or breaks a person.

There is a town in Louisiana called Mallard. If you opened a map, there wouldn’t be a reference to the town in that map. If you asked people where it is, they probably wouldn’t be able to tell you. And it wouldn’t be just because the town is small; it also would be because it’s the sort of town where if you don’t need to know about it, then you don’t get to know about it.

Have you read the “Blanche White” series by Barbara Neely? In one of the books, Neely writes about the different shades of black, how lighter-shaded Blacks are often prejudiced against darker-shaded Blacks: the unwritten caste system. Mallard is a town that was created as a refuge for the lighter-skinned Blacks, the lighter the better. However, Mallard has a dark history, too.

Adele Vignes has twin daughters, Desiree and Stella. One night in Mallard white men came and took Adele’s husband, Desiree and Stella’s father. They hanged him. It made quite an impression on the young girls and broke Adele’s spirit. Nevertheless, Adele worked to try to give her daughters opportunities. But Desiree was high-spirited and got into mischief. When they were sixteen, Desiree convinced her sister to run away with her.

In New Orleans, the twins struggled but managed to slowly lift themselves up. Adele never gave up hoping her daughters would return. Away from home, it was a revelation to the twins when they were mistaken for white girls. After having spent years forging their identities as Black women with superior light skin in Mallard, suddenly there was a very different way of looking at the world open to them.

“The Vanishing Half” follows Desiree and Stella together until New Orleans. When Stella disappears one day, it is Desiree who becomes the main focus. Who is she without Stella, she wonders. Part of her is missing. Desiree’s life continues down a better path: She marries a man who can create the world she often has wished for: a comfortable home, a child of her own. Then the man proves to be a brute; he beats and belittles her. Desiree takes her daughter and runs.

What makes Bennett’s book so compelling is that other stories are linked through the story of the twins. When she's older, Jude, Desiree’s daughter, has some exploring of her own to do. She meets Reese who expands her definition of love. She meets Kennedy who defines the word “lost.”

“The Vanishing Half” covers years in the lives of the main characters. The girls’/women’s search for identity is complicated by their whiteness or their blackness, the change in cultural acceptance in different cities in the U.S., the love and stubbornness of family ties.

I highly recommend this book.