The Distant Echo (Detective Karen Pirie, Book 1)

Powerful and atmospheric psychological thriller from the multi-award-winning Val McDermid: ‘McDermid’s capacity to enter the warped mind of a deviant criminal is shiveringly convincing’ The Times SOME THINGS JUST WON’T LET YOU GO The past, for instance. That night in the cemetery. The girl’s body in the snow, her blood scarlet against the white ground! Four a.m. on a freezing Fife morning and four drunken students stumble upon the body of a woman lying in the snow. Rosie has been raped, stabbed and left for dead in an ancient Pictish cemetery. And the only suspects are the four young men now stained with her blood. Twenty-five years later the police mount a ‘cold case’ review of Rosie’s unsolved murder and the four are still suspects. But when one of them dies in a suspicious house fire and another in a burglary gone bad, it seems that someone is pursuing their own brand of justice. For the remaining two there is only one way to avoid becoming the next victim — find out who really killed Rosie all those years ago!

Reviews of The Distant Echo (Detective Karen Pirie, Book 1)

Praise for The Distant Echo: A powerful story of murder and revenge! an exciting page-turner' Sunday Telegraph 'She has created some of the most appealing figures in current crime fiction.Val McDermid has used the crime genre to write a novel that, above everything else, celebrates life and loyalty' TLS 'A real page-turner and another McDermid triumph' Observer 'McDermid's plot is a classic, and she pulls out all the stops to achieve a sense of mounting anguish, as her hero juggles multiple red herrings, mixed loyalties, differing police agendas and complicated family ties. Impeccable' Guardian 'Reminiscent of one of Ruth Rendell's Barbara Vine thrillers — a few more sly, old-fashioned whodunits like this and she'll join the sturdy ranks of the queens of crime, on course to become Dame Val or Baroness McDermid' Sunday Times The real mistress of pychological gripping thrillers' Jenni Murray, Daily Express 'McDermid's capacity to enter the warped mind of a deviant criminal is shiveringly convincing' Marcel Berlins, The Times Praise for Killing the Shadows: 'There is no one in contemporary crime fiction who has managed to combine the visceral and the humane as well as Val McDermid ! She's the best we've got' New York Times 'Good pace, enough blood to make us feel that murder is far from cold and clinical, and, best of all, characters you believe in' Maeve Binchy, Mail on Sunday 'McDermid has become our leading pathologist of everyday evil, and she both thrills and scares in this tale of celebrity stalking with a difference ! The subtle orchestration of terror is masterful' Maxim Jakubowski, Guardian