The Distant Echo is an intricate, thought-provoking tale of murder and revenge.
Four in the morning, mid-December, and snow blankets St. Andrews School. Student Alex Gilbery and his three best friends are staggering home from a party when they stumble upon the body of a young woman. Rosie Duff has been raped, stabbed and left for dead in the ancient Pictish cemetery. The only suspects are the four young students stained with her blood.
Twenty-five years later, police mount a cold case review. Among the unsolved murders they're examining is that of Rosie Duff. But, someone else has his own idea of justice. One of the original quartet dies in a suspicious house fire and soon after, a second is killed. Alex fears the worst. Someone is taking revenge for Rosie Duff. And it might just save his life if he can uncover who really killed Rosie all those years ago.
"If you still haven't absorbed the fact that Val McDermid is writing at the top of anyone's game, here's another chance to join the celebration...her clean, crisp writing, especially about crime science, might just remind you of the early books of P.D. James."
Chicago Tribune
"Cunningly plotted...McDermid administers the venom drop by drop...Individually the characters are sensitively drawn. Collectively, they present the inscrutable face of closed-off communities so terrified of change they would kill for peace."
