The Distant Echo is a powerful psychological thriller which creates an atmosphere of intrigue and tension from the very start.
The complex story follows a series of flash backs, and the reader is constantly aware of the intrinsic link between the past and the awful truth it hold and the more terrifying reality of the present. Set in Scotland and spanning a twenty five period, the story begins with the Scottish police revisiting a cold case from their files.
The brutal rape and rape of a young woman who was left for dead in a graveyard remains unsolved. At the time of her
murder, four young men are found with blood stains on them, and when this turns out to be her blood, it makes them the prime suspects for the crime. Unable to gather sufficient evidence to secure a conviction at the time, the four seemingly walk free from the clutches of the law, but a far worse and more sinister fate awaits them later in life.
When one of the four dies in a suspicious house fire and another meets his end in the
course of a bungled burglary, it becomes obvious that someone is meted out their own justice for the murder of twenty five years earlier. One thing is certain. The remaining two will be killed, but when, where and how provide the thrilling complexities of the story and of course there is the most important question of all. Who is the real murderer?
Impeccably well written, The Distant Echo is the work of award winning writer Val McDermid, who grew up in a Scottish mining community and went on to study English at Oxford. He is the author of numerous crime thrillers, including The Wire in the Blood and A Place of Execution, and in 1995 won the Gold Dagger for best crime novel of the year with The Mermaids Singing.