Still See You Everywhere

Gardner’s third Frankie Elkin novel (after One Step Too Far) is powerful and darkly menacing, set on a coral islet that’s equally beautiful and deadly. Frankie, finder of the forgotten missing, usually chooses her own cases, but when death row serial killer Kaylee Pierson, a.k.a. “the Beautiful Butcher,” asks her to locate her little sister Leilani just weeks before the date of her execution, Frankie is enticed. Kaylee believes her sister was kidnapped 12 years ago by Sanders MacManus, Kaylee’s abusive ex-boyfriend–turned–billionaire who is now building an eco-friendly resort on a remote Pacific island. Frankie goes undercover on the isolated atoll with a dozen or more of MacManus’s staff in an attempt to locate the now 17-year-old Lea. Gardner’s narrative is a sensual mix of edgy and conversational, and her meticulous research of everything from native flora and fauna to law enforcement procedures shines. The cast of misfit characters are well portrayed, and the villain is absolutely diabolical. Best of all is Frankie, a beaten-down, antihero misfit out to save the world because there’s no saving herself.