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A review by ellelainey
The Distant Echo by Val McDermid
3.0
I think, if I'd read the book first and then watched the TV show, I would have rated this a 4* read. However, I saw the TV series first, and it was so well arranged, and Karen Pirie came through as such a strong character, with a clear, concise personality and skill at her job that the book left me feeling a little...disappointed?
At first, I loved the full 40% focus on the past investigation, which felt clearer and easier to follow than the jumping back and forth in time of the TV show. Until that point, everything was going great. I could see how they'd taken Weird/Mondo and amalgamated them for the show, and it made sense.
Everything fell apart by the time we got into the present day investigation.
1) the investigation was *seriously* lacking, on page. We got to see SO little of actual police work.
2) the lack of Karen Pirie. This is the BIGGEST problem, for me. I get that this is "introducing Karen Pirie", but I got zero picture of who she is as a cop, as a woman, as a character, through her very limited on page presence. It takes 56% before we see ANYTHING of Karen Pirie, on page. That's 16% of the modern day investigation before she even appears.
Sadly, the Karen Pirie aspect of the book was the biggest disappointment for me. She arrived so late into the book, with so little presence, and she did absolutely nothing of worth during the investigation, that it was hard to get a feel for who she is and what to expect of her next case. It felt more like the Lawson/Gilbey investigation.
HOWEVER...I will be reading more. It's possible this was written before Karen Pirie was meant to be the central character of the series, or even before there was a series in the works. That's how it came across to me, so I'm holding out hope that the next book/s will help show Karen in a clearer light.
I did really like the investigation, the cold case review concept, and the dual layer timeline. I think it had SO much potential, but because I saw the TV show first, it left me wanting more of that feisty, strong Karen I saw on the show.
At first, I loved the full 40% focus on the past investigation, which felt clearer and easier to follow than the jumping back and forth in time of the TV show. Until that point, everything was going great. I could see how they'd taken Weird/Mondo and amalgamated them for the show, and it made sense.
Everything fell apart by the time we got into the present day investigation.
1) the investigation was *seriously* lacking, on page. We got to see SO little of actual police work.
2) the lack of Karen Pirie. This is the BIGGEST problem, for me. I get that this is "introducing Karen Pirie", but I got zero picture of who she is as a cop, as a woman, as a character, through her very limited on page presence. It takes 56% before we see ANYTHING of Karen Pirie, on page. That's 16% of the modern day investigation before she even appears.
Sadly, the Karen Pirie aspect of the book was the biggest disappointment for me. She arrived so late into the book, with so little presence, and she did absolutely nothing of worth during the investigation, that it was hard to get a feel for who she is and what to expect of her next case. It felt more like the Lawson/Gilbey investigation.
HOWEVER...I will be reading more. It's possible this was written before Karen Pirie was meant to be the central character of the series, or even before there was a series in the works. That's how it came across to me, so I'm holding out hope that the next book/s will help show Karen in a clearer light.
I did really like the investigation, the cold case review concept, and the dual layer timeline. I think it had SO much potential, but because I saw the TV show first, it left me wanting more of that feisty, strong Karen I saw on the show.