A review by readingoverbreathing
The Distant Echo by Val McDermid

3.0

"In order for evil to triumph, Alex remembered, it is necessary only that good men do nothing."

My first and only other experience with Val McDermid was reading her [b:A Place of Execution|91487|A Place of Execution|Val McDermid|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1311971779l/91487._SY75_.jpg|1179513] for my crime fiction class. It was far from my favorite book on that course, but we did get to have Val as a special guest on one of our seminars, which was very cool, and I've since had a great deal of respect for her, especially as a local author, even if I wasn't overly keen on picking up any more of her work.

But then they filmed the TV adaptation of this book in St Andrews, which put the story on my radar, and I simply could not resist a murder mystery set in such familiar territory. By far my favorite part of this book was seeing how Val employed various locations across Fife, and especially in St Andrews, to form the backdrop of this story. Super fun, but also rather chilling — I run to Hallow Hill, where Rosie was found, almost every day!

It's clear to me now that Val's strength is definitely in her plots. For most of the book, you feel frustrated with the lack of a clear answer or suspect, just as the characters do, only for it all to seem so obvious by the end. For about 3/4 of this one, I was convinced that

Spoiler

Rosie's brother Colin was the culprit, but the Jimmy Lawson revelation dawned on me with probably about a hundred pages to go.

So Val didn't quite fool me this time, but she came pretty close.

The downside here was that, in all honesty, the writing itself is not great. The dialogue especially will make you wince; it's hard to picture grown adults talking the way the characters do. In general, the style here is pretty basic, the kind of simplicity you would expect from a creative writing major who is starting to realize that they may need to pursue other paths.

But I can also respect the fact that most people don't come to these books for the writing, and that the plot is really what counts, which, as I said, Val does tremendously well. I had a hard time getting over the style, which is why I settled on 3 stars, but don't let that deter you from picking up what is really a super absorbing and carefully crafted crime thriller.