Before She Disappeared

Frankie, 50, is the protagonist. She is in recovery from an alcohol addiction with “more regrets than belongings” (7). She makes no deep, intimate connections with the people whose lives she passes through. In one sense, however, she is never alone. She is followed everywhere by the ghost of her former AA sponsor Paul and all the people she was too late to save.

In many ways, Frankie is the classic hard-boiled cynical detective. An idealist underneath, she comes into town to redress injustice by saving the lost. Part of her personal journey is to accept that the state of injustice in the world isn’t her fault or her responsibility to fix. Frankie attributes much of her success to her own mistakes and uses that experience to understand what might lead others into trouble.

Frankie seeks redemption for the death of Paul, who was killed in a random shooting while trying to save Frankie. Paul’s death and Frankie’s ensuing guilt drive her to take up his mantle as a savior of the lost and hopeless. However, no matter how many lost people she finds, redemption never comes because she can’t forgive herself. Frankie believes that if she could just find one of her missing people alive, she would redeem herself for Paul’s death.