The Distant Echo

I read mysteries all the time but this was the 1st book I'd read by this author. I'd picked this book up somewhere and knew nothing about the author. What a HUGE DISAPPOINTMENT! I hate saying this but this is one of the worse mysteries I've ever read primarily because the fundamental premise of seriously considering the four young men of the murder is so flawed I could not believe it! I had to go back and check the date the book was published, otherwise I'd think it was written about 100 years ago before they had any forensics at all. The author totally disregards logic. Avenues of certain evidence were ignored and the lead detective had no motive for ignoring or dismissing evidence or lack of evidence (other than pressure to solve the case... isn't this always a factor?). In my opinion, the author was grasping for reasons that the four would be primary suspects or suspects at all, in order to justify the outcome of said suspicions on their lives. If the boys killed the woman, why would they put themselves in the position of finding her? What about footprints or vehicle tHoracks (I guess swept away by the snow? But this was clearly a very new crime scene as she was still alive when found by the boys.) What happen to the weapon? They were also suspected because a couple of them found the woman attractive as I'm sure most of the college boys who went to the bars did as well...). And the investigator just ignored the woman's unknown boyfriend who was clearly the most obvious choice as a suspect particularly since he was no where to be found?! Poorest police work I have ever seen! I guessed the killer immediately. Sorry, but VERY, VERY disappointing novel, worse I've read in a long, long time! I was surprised to find this author had written so many books! I'm afraid to try another, as most of the reviews for this book do not accurately depict this novel.

Probably no one enjoys a great whodunnit more then I do, since I was raised reading everything Agatha Christie. I am always on the look out for a good old who, how or why dunnit. This book came close to the mark but missed. Don't know why the evil-doer was telegraphed so clearly and early, because surely the author didn't mean for it to be so obvious.

The characters and story line were interesting. Totally agree with other reviewers this could have been trimmed by about 150 pages and been a tighter script.

Loved the language and sense of place in the beginning chapters. By the finish of the book I was ready for the end to come.

3 stars only

I suppose all good writers have a book they wouldn't mind disappearing. I suspect that in McDermid's case, The Distant Echo would be the one. It's a profoundly disappointing piece of work.

Set aside for a moment that you will know, a third of the way through, who the "totally baffling" killer was, with such certainty that you will read certain passages from the perspective of a second reading rather than a first. What is utterly tiresome is the leitmotif of police stupidity that pervades the book from beginning to end. Not only do the police all, without exception, suspect four obviously innocent men of the opening murder (and they vacillate between suspecting them singly or in groups), simply on the somehow absolute evidence that they found the body, but the police take the same route -- assuming the guilt of the most proximate individual, regardless of motive, opportunity, or common sense -- in all of the three murders in the book (one 12,000 miles from the other two). Unfortunately, the only justification for this bit of silliness is a spoiler. In other words, it is logic in service of the plot, which is horse pushing the cart.

If this isn't a dredged up first novel, McDermid should know better. Even if it is, she should. Her other forensic mysteries are first-rate. Give this a miss.

This is a great book. McDermid really knows how to create characters you're interested in (I was really disappointed when the first of the four students dies; he was such a compelling character), and she really knows how to create a setting.

I don't agree with the reader who said the book was too long and too wordy. This was more than a fast-read mystery; it was a novel with a mystery in it. Good stuff.

Don't know if this is a complaint or not, but for some reason, I knew who the killer was before it was revealed. Nonetheless, I still stayed up late finishing the book, so that says something about the writer and the story.

Worth reading.

THE DISTANT ECHO is one of the best stories I've read in months! It grabbed me on the first page and I kept reading it page after page. Val McDermid tells a definately compelling story with deep insight into her characters. It is filled with suspense and it gallops along. Wow! I look forward to reading all of her 5 star books!

I couldn't disagree more with the preceding review. I found this to be a terrific book, with a fascinating plot and well wrought characters. It is not fast paced but I don't see that as a requirement for a good mystery. Its thoughfulness, excellent plot and long-term perspective on the characters and events make this engrossing read.

I've read other McDermid books I've liked better, especially the "Tony Hill" series, but this was good - just not great. It might have had more of a chance for greatness if about 200 pages were cut out of it. Beyond wordy.

Character development was excellent. I also enjoyed the descriptive passages about Scotland. I guessed who the killer was right at the beginning of the book so it IS a testament to McDermid's writing skill that she kept me entertained enough to finish the entire book and still enjoy it.

This is a book to read while curled up in front of a warm fire, snowing outside, drink of choice in hand, with no plans for a few days, drifting off to nap once in a while. Because you do get involved in it and just keep reading along. Good just not great.

In 1978, when four young university students, after a night of carousing, make their way home, one of them, Alex Gilbey, stumbles across the nearly dead body of nineteen year old Rosie Duff, lying in the snow banks of a desolate Scottish cemetery. While they gather around her body in shock, little did they know that all their lives would be irrevocably changed. Though Alex, the fastest of them, runs for help while the others try to keep Rosie, whom they all know, alive, help arrives too little, too late, for Rosie.

With no real evidence against anyone else and their alibis soft, these four good Samaritans, who were covered in Rosie's blood through their efforts in keeping her alive, find themselves suspects in her murder. Though never formally charged with the crime and with no actual proof or evidence of their guilt or complicity in the murder, the stench of suspicion would follow them and change their lives forever. Rosie's crime, however, would remain unsolved for years.

Twenty-five years later, the case would be re-opened as a cold case. Alex and his friends, who had gone on to rebuild their lives would suddenly find old wounds being re-opened, as the stench of suspicion would once again waft around them. This time, however, they would begin dying under suspicious circumstances. Clearly someone has decided them guilty of Rosie's murder and is exacting retribution. Alex knows that unless he acts quickly to try to solve the mystery of Rosie's murder, he himself may be marked for murder.

This is a well-written murder mystery that is essentially bifurcated into two segments: those events that transpired in 1978 and those events that transpired twenty-five years later. There are many masterful twists and turns in the story and the characters are all well-fleshed, making for an absorbing, page turning read. This is a carefully crafted murder mystery that fans of the genre will love.

Several friends had recommended Val McDermid to me and so I finally got around to picking up one of her books at the local library.

In "The Distant Echo" McDermid gives us the story of a foursome of coming-of-age college mates in Scotland, walking home thoroughly drunk after a party. They literally stumble across the body of Rosie Duff, a young barmaid from the village who has been brutalized and left to bleed to death. But by the time the police arrive, she has died and the boys immediately move from being good samaritans to being suspects. Ultimately, there isn't anything other than circumstantial evidence linking the boys to the crime and they go free, but not before their reputations have been so tarnished that they are nearly run out of town. They spend the next 25 years trying to forget the events of that fateful night, mostly without success, when suddenly two of the four are murdered within days of one another. The remaining two quickly become convinced that the murders are not coincidence, but the work of Rosie's original killer, coming back to cover his tracks.

While McDermid serves up a whodunnit in this book, I have to admit that I figured out who the killer was in the first third of the book and the remainder just seemed to plod along until the final few chapters where she finally revealed the killer's identity...about 20 chapters too late for me. The only thing that really took me by surprise was a small plot twist that, while obvious in retrospect, had allowed the real killer to escape detection for so long.

Even if I had not figured out the killer so early on, this book still would have moved interminably slowly for me. McDermid is a fine writer - make no mistake. I just found the pace to be maddeningly slow. One of the characters in the novel - a journalist - complained at one point of there being nothing worse than getting the information you came for early in an interview, and then having to sit through another two hours of tedium when the fact you want is already in-hand. That largely sums up how I felt about this book and McDermid would have been wise to take the lament of her character to heart. It could have been 200 pages shorter and accomplished the same thing without feeling rushed, truncated, or selling the characters short.

One thing I did enjoy about this book was the setting. It takes place in Scotland and the dialect, figures of speech, landmarks, and banalities of life from a different culture were interesting. It wasn't long before I could hear the characters' Scottish accents and felt immersed in their lives. Unfortunately, this enjoyable aspect of the book was more than offset by McDermid's portrayal of Christians. One of the main characters becomes a Christian and the author seizes on the conversion experience to turn one of the more interesting individuals in the book into little more than a cardboard cutout. I can often tell whether a writer is a Christian or not simply by the way they portray Christians. Those with little understand of what it is to be a Christian either serve up a self-righteous stereotype or someone who somehow ceases to become human after their conversion. In this novel, McDermid gives us both and just continues to hammer it home every time the character makes an appearance. It was quite embarrassing really, and did not reflect well on McDermid. Christians are real people, capable of more than just pious platitudes, a fact of which McDermid seems to be unaware. Perhaps her entire exposure to Christians is via American TV evangelists that make it onto the British airwaves...I'm not sure, but her bias was simply too blatant to ignore.

All in all, McDermid strikes me as having the potential to deliver 5-star books, but she failed to do so here. I'll probably read one or two more, but if they move as slowly as this one and if she serves up more stereotypes like she did in this one, I'll move on to others in this genre rather than sticking with her.

I didn't find the characters appealing at the start so I had trouble getting interested. So much time spent on unappealing people.