One Step Too Far

Frankie Elkin's second adventure takes her to a wilderness area to search for a young man who disappeared from a camping trip celebrating his upcoming marriage. Three of his groomsmen managed to stumble out of the woods and the fourth was soon located, but Timothy O'Day was never found.

Despite his father's annual search for Tim or his remains, no trace had ever been found. Frankie comes to town as the fifth and final search is getting started. Despite a lack of experience hiking in the wilderness, Frankie manages to insinuate herself onto the team. She takes the place of the fourth groomsman who is hospitalized as a result of his alcoholism. The other members of the group are the father of the groom, three remaining groomsmen, a local show more guide, a Bigfoot hunter with lots of wilderness experience, and a woman and her cadaver dog Daisy.

No sooner than they get to their base camp after a harrowing hike than things start to go wrong. One of the groomsmen is lured from his tent and the rest scatter to find him. When they return to the camp, they learn that most of their food is missing with no indication that animals took it.

The father refuses to give up the search. He has promised his dying wife that he will return her son to her before she dies. When they begin exploring an area with caves and crevices, they are shot at and one of the groomsmen is bashed on the head with a rock.

The group begins arguing about what to do and ends up splitting up with the ablest hikers heading back to get help. The group is further split up when the father demands that he be allowed to search the cave area again. All the while, Frankie is talking to people and doing what she can to learn more about Tim and about what happened on the first fateful camping trip.

The story is packed with adventure. The descriptions of the hikes and their flight from a well-armed enemy are chilling. Only my knowledge that there are books three and four in the series, gave me any hope that Frankie would survive both the attacker and the wilderness.

This was an edge of the seat thriller. I really, really enjoyed it and loved learning more about Frankie and why she lives the life she does. show less

Frankie Elkin is incredibly talented at finding missing persons. This time sees her searching for a man who wandered into the wilderness five years ago and was never seen again. Frankie arrives in Ramsey, Wyoming, having been drawn in by the story of the hiker Timothy O’Day. Since Timothy had been missing for five years, this search is a last-gasp effort of his father, Martin, hoping to at least find his sons' body. Frankie manages to talk her way into joining the search party. Along with Frankie the team is composed of a mixture of well trained and often successful searchers. In addition to Frankie and Tim's father, Martin, the remainder of the team is composed of a local guide; a search-and-rescue dog and her handler; a Bigfoot show more expert; and some of Tim’s friends who were in the woods with him when he went missing. In the years since, they’ve moved on with their lives, but they have always carried guilt and secrets about the night Tim disappeared. As they start into the wilderness, it very soon becomes apparent that someone is extremely threatened by this search effort to find Tim’s body. Frankie tries to draw the truth from each member of the search party, but no one needs to tell her that she's way in over her head. She's a searcher but she's also inexperienced with wilderness searches. Questions are now building up. Is Tim still alive and looking for revenge? Is there something more dangerous among the search team? Or is there a secret that someone would kill, or perhaps has already killed to protect? Lisa Gardner is incredibly skilled at producing a story of tension and suspense. She’s also a master at ever so slowly revealing the complex characters and all their secrets. Both these qualities are in on high levels in this story. Frankie isn't the only one "out of her element"...so was I for a great deal of the story. It’s not often that a book so clearly takes us into the darkness of both nature and the human heart that this one does. It's terrifying, it's primal, and it's very, very tense, and one of the best thrillers that I have read this year. show less

Frankie Elkin, the ordinary but strong woman with a troubled past and a mission to find missing persons, was introduced by bestselling author Lisa Gardner in Before She Disappeared. Gardner was inspired to create the character when she happened upon an article about Lissa Yellowbird-Chase, a woman who gave up everything in order to pursue cold cases because of her belief that too many missing children of color are forgotten and the mysteries surrounding their disappearances never solved. Gardner found Yellowbird-Chase’s work "inspiring" and "a bit mesmerizing." She wondered, "What would that look like?" and decided to explore the question via Frankie's fictional journeys.

“I tried real life once. There was a house, a job, even a man show more who loved me enough to hold my hand as I fought my way to sober,” Frankie explains. But there is no longer a place Frankie calls home. Ten years ago, a woman in an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting shared that the police showed little interest in her daughter’s disappearance. “I became intrigued, started asking questions, and the next thing I knew, I’d found the daughter.” In the years since, Frankie has traveled wherever the cases lead her, volunteering her services. She learns about missing persons in online forums and chat rooms by using computers in local libraries. She decides which cases to pursue solely by gut instinct. Frankie is searching for missing people, as well as something else. Gardner believes Frankie is “searching for herself. She's obsessed. She's looking for the why of it.” Frankie confesses, “I don’t always know why I choose the cases I do.” But “it works” for Frankie, who is an addict and an outsider wherever she goes.

In One Step Too Far, she pursues the case of Timothy O’Day, who went missing five years ago, in large part because Tim’s mother is dying and “just wants to be buried next to her son.” Frankie planned to go to Idaho to help search for an eight-year-old boy who vanished sixteen months ago. But when she learned that Tim’s father has been organizing annual expeditions to search for his son’s remains and has planned one final attempt to locate and bring his boy’s body home in order to grant his wife’s dying wish, Frankie just knows that she has to be part of the search team despite the fact that she is not ready for the harsh conditions she will encounter in the Popo Agie Wilderness. For one thing, she lacks the requisite clothing, equipment, and supplies, as well as the funds to purchase the items she will need. She is not an experienced hiker. And when she arrives, the members of the team are assembling and strategizing, but they do not readily welcome the outsider into their midst.

None of them expect to miraculously find Tim alive. Rather, the searchers will be accompanied by a cadaver dog because, if they are lucky, they will retrieve Tim’s bones so they can be buried next to his mother. Frankie knows well that the kind of search on which she and the other members of the team are about to embark is about “gaining closure.” Perhaps his parents can find some peace by finding tangible remnants such as bones or personal effects. Perhaps it will help them to simply understand, at long last, what exactly happened to Tim and caused his demise.

Tim was an experienced hiker and outdoorsman, having been taught by his father to survive in the wilderness. So he was the acknowledged leader of the group of five young college friends who decided a camping trip would be the perfect way to celebrate Tim’s upcoming nuptials. It was to be their last weekend get-away before the end of Tim’s bachelorhood. Tim, Scott, Neil, Josh, and Miguel set up camp. But after an evening of heavy drinking, Scott disappeared in the middle of the night and Tim ventured out to find him. Unfortunately, he never returned. He disappeared without a trace. Although hundreds of volunteers combed the woods for weeks after he vanished, none of his equipment (backpack, headlamp, clothing, etc.) was even found. Scott resurfaced, claiming to have no memory of what happened on that fateful night.

Eventually, Frankie convinces the group to let her join them, and she, along with an experienced resident, Tim’s grief-hardened father, Tim's four friends, a Bigfoot hunter, and a search-dog handler all head up the mountain. Frankie is well aware that the greatest danger “comes from the eight humans who just hiked” into the wilderness, and although she does not yet understand why it ultimately matters, she knows that she must get to know her companions.

In Before She Disappeared, Gardner established Frankie as an endearingly complicated and puzzling protagonist who must constantly safeguard her sobriety. Gardner revealed part of Frankie’s troubled history and permitted her to develop feelings for Dan Lotham, the lead detective on the case she worked in Boston. She was tempted to remain there and attempt to maintain a stable relationship with him but knew herself well enough to know that she had to continue her quest to find the missing. Gardner evocatively depicts Frankie’s longing for love and desire to run back to Boston and let herself fall into Lotham’s strong arms. “Except then it will be morning. There’s always morning.” Gardner says Frankie has to keep moving because if she stays in one place, she will drink.

Gardner ramps up the dramatic tension as Frankie learns about the histories of the other members of the search party. Details about their relationships, long-held secrets, and resentments come to light. Gardner surrounds Frankie with a compelling cast of supporting characters which includes her setting. The vastly beautiful but perilous wilderness area in which the search is being conducted serves as an additional character, providing context and heightening the intrigue. Gardner injects the tale with authenticity, in part because she is an avid hiker who lives in the mountains of New Hampshire. She relates that penning the book was one of her most enjoyable writing endeavors because hiking is an integral part of her writing process. When she finds herself stuck or in need of inspiration, she goes out on a trek. She spent more time in the outdoors when the world shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic, taking longer and more adventurous hikes in areas beyond cell phone coverage or the reach of rescuers. She describes it as "isolating, exhilarating, terrifying.”

Gardner understands perfectly why Frankie has “struck a chord” with readers. “She is empathetic. . . . Frankie is not a crack investigator, she is not a hacker, she does not have superpowers. However, she is an excellent listener. And she cares. She’s an alcoholic and has done all sorts of bad things. Her family was imperfect. She does not judge. She is genuinely interested in people, in hearing their stories, and in providing that kind of balm she inevitably gets the information necessary to bring things together. I think she’s both fascinating and vulnerable, but soothing in a world where everyone wants to be hurt but nobody cares to listen anymore.”

Still, Gardner finds it challenging to write Frankie’s first-person narrative. “I am her and she is us. She is a proxy for the everyday, average person.” What sets her apart is her obsession with finding people who have gone missing. Frankie is adept at asking questions and the key to her success is the fact that she is an outsider rather than a trained member of law enforcement She can ask questions and employ techniques that are unavailable to professionals.

But in this story, Frankie is in the wild, isolated with a group of people she quickly discovers are not really a cohesive group at all, but they will have to rely on each other in order to survive. Frankie can’t simply pursue interviews with neighbors and friends of the missing person. She has access only to the members of the search party who Gardner gradually reveals to be untrustworthy. Equipment and supplies go missing. There is a strong sense of being watched. Soon bodies begin piling up. Someone is intent on sabotaging the expedition. But who? And why? Frankie soon regrets her decision to pursue the case as the group proceeds further into the wild and her lack of survival skills becomes increasingly apparent and potentially lethal. She has to figure out her companions’ alliances, as well as their motivations for revenge and the bases for their efforts prevent the truth from finally coming to light. If she fails to carry out her mission, she may not emerge from the woods at all. So Frankie has to bring something unique “to the table” in order to solve the case. “Her superpower is people – listening, learning, adapting.” Gardner poses the question of whether the result will be survival of the fittest or the most adaptable. Gardner propels the story forward at an unrelenting pace as Frankie, who “is not the fittest,” proves how adaptable she is. Adaptability is a skill that many people had to acquire during the pandemic, Gardner observes. And it proves to be the key to Frankie’s ability to solve the case and live to relate to readers how she accomplishes her goal.

One Step Too Far is yet another engrossing, propulsive, cleverly-plotted, and unpredictable mystery from a master storyteller who again demonstrates that she is at the top of her form with this series. Gardner says, "I read for character, character and character. I’m looking to see the world through someone else’s eyes and in doing so, having my own eyes opened to fresh experiences, issues and ideas." The series succeeds because it is, at its core, an intriguing exploration of Frankie's psyche. In her second outing, Frankie’s quest to discover what happened to Tim is an emotionally resonant examination of the grief of loss, guilt, and the tenuous bonds of friendship. Readers will find themselves further enamored with the irascible, stubborn, but compassionate woman who is compelled to keeping moving from place to place, and clamoring for the next volume, anxious to see what case Frankie next pursues . . . and if she will find what she is looking for.

Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader's Copy of the book. show less

4.5/5

“Five guys went into the woods. One has never been seen again. And the other four . . . they are not who they used to be either. Life is like that.”

Haunted by her past, Frankie Elkin is “an average, middle-aged white woman, short on belongings, long on regret” who specializes in cold cases mostly involving the “underserved” in the community. While on the way to Idaho, where she plans to take up the case of an eight-year-old boy who has been missing for sixteen months, she comes across an article about thirty-three-year-old Timothy O’Day who disappeared while on a bachelors’ camping trip with his college friends in the Popo Agie Wilderness on the edge of Ramsey, Wyoming five years ago. Tim’s father has been show more searching for any clues about his son’s fate for the last five years and is about to venture out on his next trip into the wilderness where Tim was last seen. Frankie changes her plans and joins the search, motivated by her desire to bring closure to the family of a missing young man whose mother is dying of cancer. Even though Frankie has no experience of hiking or search and rescue in the wilderness she joins the group who, though skeptical of Frankie’s ability to hold her own in the rough conditions , reluctantly agrees when one of Tim’s friends has to drop out.

“Eight people head into the woods. A grieving father, a hiking guide, three college friends, and three semiprofessional searchers. On the surface, it makes sense. So why do I have a feeling eight of us won’t be coming back out.”

The group faces injury, sabotage, harsh terrain and internal conflict wherein it is revealed that there was more to the events of that fateful night five years ago than was initially reported. Added to this is the fact that Tim is not the only person to have disappeared in the area. There have been reports of several hikers gone missing over the years. When the group makes a shocking discovery and one of them is severely injured, hidden secrets and agendas come to the surface. Is someone in their midst playing games or are they being followed by someone who knows what happened to Tim? Cut off from any outside assistance, it ultimately boils down to who between themselves can be trusted and how they can survive when being hunted by someone who obviously wants them out the way. What begins as a search for a missing person soon becomes a fight for their own survival.

Taut and twisty with an ending that I did not see coming, One Step Too Far is a gripping thriller that will keep you hooked till the very last page. The descriptions of the landscape add to the dark and atmospheric tone of the novel. Lisa Gardner is brilliant in crafting thrillers that keep you on the edge of your seat. In Frankie Elkin, the author portrays an admirable protagonist. She is an intelligent and strong woman battling her own demons, who goes above and beyond to bring justice for those who have been marginalized and whose calls for help have fallen on deaf ears. Even though she prefers to be a drifter, she is not indifferent to the people around her and does establish emotional connections with people she meets on her journey. I’ve enjoyed both books in Lisa Gardner’s Frankie Elkin series and hope for more in the future. show less

So this thoroughly urban woman is going to undertake a search in rural Wyoming? She is catastrophically unprepared both mentally, physically and experience-wise. She can't ride, doesn't have any gear or the first idea about what being away from a sidewalk really means. I'm also having a hard time with her poverty and rootless state. How the heck can you pursue lines of inquiry without databases and other online information repositories? It seems a stretch to me that she'd get anywhere at all. Sure, folks did missing persons work before the advent of computers and modern communication, but it was so much harder. And what is with being so afraid of a knife? What a weirdo.

This woman is seriously bugging me. Complaining about the woods, the show more work, how hard it is and that there is nothing but trees. Uh, yeah. What did you expect? It's the fucking wilderness you moron. In Wyoming, not Central Park. And I am so tired of the weak and the unconditioned dragging everyone down thinking they can keep up with basically the lowest level of fitness you can have and still manage to walk on your own. Ridiculous. Now she's freaking out that some animal is making a noise in the woods and doubting people with experience that it's nothing to worry about. Yes you smug asshole, creatures other than humans can scream and most of the time it's not a big deal. I've heard fox and fisher scream like a bloody murder. I'm still walking around. What a jerk this woman is.

And uh, narrator lady, they're smores not su-mores. S'mores. Is it really that hard? show less

(audio) The second Frankie Elkin thriller finds her in Wyoming, blundering into joining a wilderness search party looking for a man in his twenties who disappeared while on a bachelor's hiking trip. Unlike the first in the series, loner Frankie becomes completely intertwined with and dependent upon a local guide, a Bigfoot hunter, a search-and-rescuer and her dog, the father of the missing man, and three of the friends who were with him five years ago. The physical agony of undertaking such a strenuous backcountry endeavor, lacking in proper equipment and experience, makes Frankie the weakest link. She still can, however, use her sharp mental skills and an even sharper borrowed knife. Four days into the one week trip, the group has been show more attacked and had most of their supplies stolen, seemingly by a bear-like creature, and are forced to split up. The creeping realization that they themselves are being tracked is horrifying, as is the suspicion that one of their party is responsible. The suspense rachets up as the listener tries to separate the red herrings from the guilty party. In the end, Frankie seems to accept the idea that she needs to create a real life for herself rather than just rushing from one missing person case to the next, with no home and no friends. The next book will show whether or not she succeeds, or whether she continues her peripatetic lonely life. show less

When Frankie Elkin, a self-proclaimed hunter of missing people, arrives in the small town of Ramsey, Wyoming, she decides to join a search-and-recovery mission in the Popo Agie Wilderness. It has been five years since Timothy O'Day went missing. Though there is little hope of finding him alive, Tim's father, Martin, along with his four college buddies—Scott, Niel, Miguel, and Josh—volunteers each year to search another section of the rugged mountain terrain for Tim's remains. This year, their group also includes Luciana and her SAR dog, Daisy; a Bigfoot hunter named Bob; and Nemeth, an experienced wilderness guide. They reluctantly accept Frankie's offer to join them.

Their destination for this year's search is a remote and rocky show more area known as Devil's Canyon. Frankie isn't an experienced hiker and quickly realizes, after the first day, that wilderness hiking requires physical fitness and proper gear. However, soon there's a more pressing concern than sore muscles: a killer is on the loose.

This story is filled with twists that keep you guessing about who the heroes and villains are. When Frankie and her fellow hikers suffer a setback and regroup with a new plan, they are attacked yet again and must run for their lives. One by one, they begin to fall. While this nightmare is captivating, I don't think I'll go camping again anytime soon. show less