Rating: 4.5 stars
Synopsis:
The home of a family
of five is now a crime scene: four of them savagely murdered, one—a
sixteen-year-old girl—missing. Was she lucky to have escaped? Or is her absence
evidence of something sinister? Detective D. D. Warren is on the case—but so is
survivor-turned-avenger Flora Dane. Seeking different types of justice, they
must make sense of the clues left behind by a young woman who, whether as
victim or suspect, is silently pleading, Look for me.
My Review:
The past two years I
have had the privilege of being opened to the world of psychological thriller
fiction with the beautifully terrifying writing of Lisa Gardner and her books Right Behind You and Find Her.
Detective D.D. Warren
has teamed up with badass survivor Flora Dane for a riveting new investigation
into the life of a missing teenage girl. Like in any book written by one of
your favourite authors, there is always something about their writing that just
hooks you in immediately. I started reading Gardner’s D.D. Warren series on her
seventh book into the series, yet it read like a standalone. I was baffled, I
felt this guilty urge to go and read all of her other books before reading Find Her, but I didn’t need to. Every
book she writes, whether it’s the Detective D.D. Warren series or her Quincy
& Rainie series, she always writes in a way where they can be read as
standalone adventures. Yes, there are many references to past stories, but it
doesn’t leave you confused or feel like you are missing a part of the story.
Gardner certainly
knows how to tell a story well and something often seen in her books is
multiple perspectives, whether it be from different characters or different
moments in time such as past tense reflections. However, in Look For Me, readers are enlightened
into the mind of young Roxy Baez through her series of class essays entitled “What
is the Perfect Family?”. In these essays, Roxy illustrates for the reader what
it was like from the inside of her family, how she became a mother to her
siblings and their experiences in a foster home system.
Look For Me is a story of mistakes, revenge, forgiveness and the true meaning of
what it is to be a family. There are two really strong themes that Gardner focuses
on in Look For Me, survival in a
world of social media and how far one may go to stop the toxic cycle that
continues to haunt many characters. Survival becomes a large part of Roxy’s
part in the novel, whether it be in the foster home, out on the streets or in
her family house with an alcoholic mother. In the years following Flora Dane’s
escape from Jacob Ness, she becomes a vigilante as such where she starts up a
support group for other survivors of kidnappings, predatory attacks or mass
shootings. Roxy joins this group through a mutual friend’s recommendation and
she learns what to pack if running away, what defence tactics work best and how
to escape unscathed.
This new addition to
Gardner’s D.D. Warren series isn’t as gruesome or cutthroat as her other books
like Find Her but it still can be
quite overwhelming as there is a lot going on in D.D. and Flora’s lives outside
of the investigation. It certainly brings a large element of reality to the
plate with the police procedures, the failure of the foster system and the irreplaceable
damage that abuse can do to a family.
Lisa Gardner is a truly
fantastic crime author and I highly recommend her books to anyone wanting to
dive into crime fiction. If you enjoy books where you feel like you are
constantly on the edge of your seat, her book Right Behind You is the book for you! However, if you are more of
the grisly, gripping and gruesome, Find Her is one that will have you clawing for air as you turn the final pages.
Think Lovely Thoughts
xo
