The Distant Echo

Val McDermid's The Distant Echo is, even more so than with her previous work, a masterpiece of trickery and misdirection. In 1978, four male students find the body of Rosie Duff half-buried in the snow and their lives are variously damaged by the suspicion that falls on them when the murder is never solved; a quarter of a century later, the case is reopened and suddenly the quartet start to be killed one after the other.

This is an effective thriller because it is so intelligent about the ways in which time changes things--secrets that seemed important become trivial and investigative techniques become ever more accurate. It is also intelligent about the ways in which things do not change--the friendships of the four men persist even when one becomes a fundamentalist preacher and another a post-modern literary theorist. Unusually for McDermid, this is a very Scots book as well--the investigating officers Maclennan and Lawson are very much men of a particular time and place. McDermid has a real sense of how to make forensic details count in a murder story--she also, more importantly, has a heart--this is a novel that makes us care passionately about victims and suspects alike. --Roz Kaveney

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Ziggy Stardust & the Spiders from the Dark Side of the Moon - Rated
Val McDermid grew up in Kirkcaldy, a small mining community on the east coast of Scotland and studied English at Oxford University. The books she has written featuring Tony Hill and Carol Jordan have provided the basis for the popular "Wire on the Blood" television series. Her novels have won a number of awards, including the Macavity award, the Anthony Award and Grand Prix des Romans d'Aventure. "The Distant Echo", meanwhile, has picked up the Sherlock and Barry Awards and has been nominated for the Theakston's Old Peculiar Crime Novel of the Year. It is one of her stand-alone books, was first published in 2003 and is largely set in Scotland.

The story begins in December 1978 with four students at St. Andrew's University staggering home together after an end-of-term party. Alex "Gilly" Gilbey, Sigmund "Ziggy" Malkiewicz, Tom "Weird" Mackie and Davey "Mondo" Kerr grew up in the nearby village of Kirkcaldy and - despite differences of opinion about David Bowie and Pink Floyd - have been close friends since school. Taking their usual short-cut over Hallow Hill, a hidden tree-root and a shove form Weird sees Alex literally stumbling across something he'd rather have avoided. Rosie Duff, the Lammas Bar's nineteen year-old barmaid, has been raped, stabbed and is barely alive when Alex lands on her. Ziggy, a medical student, tries to keep her alive while Alex runs for help - however, by the time he returns with PC Jimmy Lawson, Rosie has died. Worse is to come : DI Barney Maclennan, who leads the subsequent murder investigation, views the four friends as the prime suspects rather than key witnesses. The police's attempts at an investigation, and their suspicions about the students, become common knowledge : the early part of the book covers the initial investigation and its effects on the four friends. However, they aren't charged, and the case never comes to court.

In late 2003, Fife Police announce they are to look into Rosie's murder again as part of a full-scale cold case review. While the Laddies fi' Kirkcaldy were never charged, there are some who are still convinced of their guilt - including Rosie's brothers, a pair with a violent record. By now, Alex is living in Edinburgh, Mondo is in Glasgow, while Ziggy and Weird are living in America. On the twenty-fifth anniversary of Rosie's murder, a date Alex has never been able to forget, he receives a phone call : one of his three friends is dead, killed in what turns out to be an arson attack. Attending the funeral, he notices a wreath made of rosemary and white roses. The message, unsigned, reads "Rosemary for Remembrance". Alex, remembering that Rosie's full name was Rosemary Duff, has started feeling somewhat edgy...

This is the first novel by McDermid I've read, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's difficult not to feel sorry for, and worried about, Alex and his friends bearing in mind what the investigation is doing to them, the strain it puts on their friendship and how they are widely viewed as pariahs. The book features plenty of twists and turns, is very easily read and is one I would highly recommend.

Well written as ever - but too easily solved. - Rated
It's hard being a reader of crime fiction, particularly a whodunit. You spend a whole book trying to work out where it's all leading, and then you get to the denouement to find you were completely wrong and didn't see it coming at all. That's what makes some books so good, right?

Well, yes. Unfortunately this doesn't take into account that when you are actually successful in working out 'whodunit', it's a disappointment. It's almost a battle of wits between author and reader, and if the author fails to outfox you, you feel let down.

I didn't work out the solution to this from an early stage, but as the book developed it gradually began to slot into place, and I hoped in vain that I was wrong about the identity of the killer. It's a shame, because this book is as well written as any of Val McDermid's other novels. She is a hugely talented writer and the only thing that prevents me from giving this one five stars is that it was too predictable.

Read this anyway, and try not to work out the solution. While it's not quite as good as the Tony Hill or Kate Brannigan series, it's still a very decent crime novel.

Well written as ever - but too easily solved - Rated
It's hard being a reader of crime fiction, particularly a whodunit. You spend a whole book trying to work out where it's all leading, and then you get to the denouement to find you were completely wrong and didn't see it coming at all. That's what makes some books so good, right?

Well, yes. Unfortunately this doesn't take into account that when you are actually successful in working out 'whodunit', it's a disappointment. It's almost a battle of wits between author and reader, and if the author fails to outfox you, you feel let down.

I didn't work out the solution to this from an early stage, but as the book developed it gradually began to slot into place, and I hoped in vain that I was wrong about the identity of the killer. It's a shame, because this book is as well written as any of Val McDermid's other novels. She is a hugely talented writer and the only thing that prevents me from giving this one five stars is that it was too predictable.

Read this anyway, and try not to work out the solution. While it's not quite as good as the Tony Hill or Kate Brannigan series, it's still a very decent crime novel.

possibly my favourite of all her books... - Rated
this book is fantastic. it is a real page turner and i think is my favourite of all her books (and i have read them all...) brilliant...

...an excellent crime thriller - Rated
I've previously read three books by Val McDermid, all from the Tony Hill/Carol Jordan series.
This novel was written in a very different style. The first half or so of the book entirely covers the events around the rape and murder of Rosie Duff, a nineteen-year old barmaid in St. Andrews, Scotland in December 1978. She is found lying in a graveyard by four students - Alex "Gilly" Gilbey, Tom "Weird" Mackie, Sigmund "Ziggy" Malkiewics and David "Mondo" Kerr - who stumble over her body after staggering home from a party. Covered in her blood and with no other witnesses around, they soon become the prime suspects. Although the police fail to find anything that ties them to the murdered girl, the damage is already done - over the following weeks and months, the students are cruelly and relentlessly targeted by members of the girl's family as well as fellow students who attack them, one by one, both verbally and physically, until one of them can't take it any longer - at last he snaps and tries to kill himself...

Twenty-five years later, after moving away from the area, the friends have all somehow managed to rebuild their lives in one way or another. Still suspicion is cast on them so when the chief of Fife Police decides to re-open the case in the hope that modern forensic procedures might shed some light on Rosie's murder, Alex and his friends are confident that after all these years their names will finally be cleared.

But before forensic tests can be done on the girl's blood- and semen-stained clothes, they disappear and with them the chance to proof the real killer's identity.

And then, 25 years to the day of Rosie Duff's death, one of the friends is found murdered in an arson attack in his home in Seattle, Washington. A few weeks later, another one is stabbed and mortally wounded in Glasgow. Someone wants vengeance and after all these years, he's adamant to give the four ex-students just what he thinks that they deserve...

This novel is masterfully written by an author who's had the advantage on moving on very familiar terrain. Val McDermid has cleverly spun some of her own experiences, first as a student in Glasgow in the seventies and then as a journalist into the story, making it all very believable.

I must admit that I started suspecting who turned out to be the killer of Rosie Duff already at an early stage but that's probably because I've read other books by Val before and have somehow adapted to her way of thinking :-) but without giving away any spoilers, all I'm saying is I was very surprised by the final outcome.

This is a tale of true friendship and what some narrow-minded people's pre-judice can do to others, and how a single man's cowardly lies can destroy so much...

This novel is less gory than the others I've read by Val but no less exciting and intense. I'll happily recommend it to anyone interested in good crime/detective thrillers.