Book Review: Find Her (Lisa Gardner) @DuttonBooks @LisaGardnerBks

Last year I had seen Find Her by Lisa Gardner all over the place and people were raving about it. I promptly picked it up and put it on my bookshelf…where it sat in solitude for the last year.

I figured what better way to celebrate the novel’s paperback release (which is today!) than to read and review it.

And, let me tell you, I am glad that I decided to read this one.

This novel surrounds survivor, Flora, who spent over 470 days with her kidnapper who transported her around the country in a wooden box. Five years later, Detective D.D. Warren is called to the scene of a crime where a dead man is on the floor of a garage and a naked, bound Flora who has killed him. Is she a victim or a vigilante?   With several missing women, Detective Warren begins to piece together these abductions and finds herself in a race against time when Flora disappears.

This novel is the eighth in a series that follows Detective D.D Warren.  Previously, I had read Right Behind You, one of Gardner’s novels from the Quincy and Rainie series and had struggled a little bit to connect to the characters since there was a lot of backstory I had missed. I hadn’t read any of the other novels in the Detective D.D Warren series, so I was nervous, but, luckily, I had no trouble reading this one as a standalone.   Gardner did a brilliant job making sure Warren’s backstory was not the focus and the case at hand was in the forefront, it made it very easy to connect with and move forward. However, I did love that Gardner brought in characters from her other novels, like Kimberly Quincy.   It was a nice touch and was appreciated since I am familiar with Gardner’s other work.

Gardner nails it with her characters in this novel. Flora was awesome. She was completely different from any character I have met in a typical abduction-style narrative. I also loved the introduction of Samuel Keyes, her Victim Assistance Officer. This was a new concept for me; it was interesting to have some characters out of the norm.   I also loved how Gardner explored so many aspects of abductions from Stockholm syndrome to attachment.   Gardner clearly goes above and beyond in her research and it absolutely shows.

Throughout my reading, I kept thinking to myself how much this novel was reminding me of a Criminal Minds episode; I am a huge fan of the show (well, up until this season because this Spencer Reid plot is absolutely ridiculous…but that is a whole other story, for a whole different type of blog) so I was impressed with how Gardner was able to create this vivid, creepy, ominous world and make it come alive on the pages.

I did find that Find Her had quite the slow middle and generally slower pace, but it worked and I still found myself sucked into the story.

Overall, if you are fans of abduction stories, kick ass female protagonists and police procedural novels, this should be at the top of your TBR piles. I ended up loving this one. 5/5 stars.