Stunning new psychological thriller from Britain's most exciting crime writer, the award-winning Val McDermid...'Val McDermid is a roaring Ferrari amid the crowded traffic on the crime-writing road' - Independent our in the morning, mid-December, and snow is smothering St Andrews. Student Alex Gilbey 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. And the only suspects are the four young students stained with her blood. Twenty-five years later, Fife police mount a cold case review. Among the unsolved murders they're examining is that of Rosie Duff. But someone else has their own idea of how justice should be done. One of the original quartet dies in a suspicious house fire. Soon after, a second is killed in what looks like a burglary gone sour. But Alex fears the worst. Someone is taking revenge for Rosie Duff. He has to find out who it is before he becomes the next victim. And it might just save his life if he can uncover who really killed Rosie all those years ago.
About the Author :
Val McDermid is a No.1 bestseller whose novels have been translated into more than thirty languages, and have sold more than sixteen million copies. She has won many awards internationally, including the CWA Gold Dagger for best crime novel of the year and the LA Times Book of the Year Award. She was inducted into the ITV3 Crime Thriller Awards Hall of Fame in 2009, was the recipient of the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger in 2010 and received the Lambda Literary Foundation Pioneer Award in 2011. In 2016, Val received the Outstanding Contribution to Crime Fiction Award at the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival. In 2017, she received the DIVA Literary Prize for Crime and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. She is also the patron of the Scottish Book Trust. Val writes full time and lives in Edinburgh and the East Neuk of Fife.
Review :
Praise for The Distant Echo:
‘A classic … McDermid pulls out all the stops. Impeccable’ Guardian
‘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
‘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
‘A powerful story of murder and revenge … an exciting page-turner’ Sunday Telegraph
Praise for Val McDermid:
‘The queen of crime’ Independent
'No one rivals Val McDermid’s skill at writing truly terrifying thrillers’ Good Housekeeping
‘The real mistress of psychological gripping thrillers' Daily Express
'McDermid's capacity to enter the warped mind of a deviant criminal is shiveringly convincing' The Times
‘Val McDermid is undoubtedly the queen of British crime’ Observer
'McDermid’s expertly juggled plotlines and masterful handling of pace and tension tick all the best boxes’ Guardian
‘The queen of crime is still at the top of her game’ Independent
‘One of today’s most accomplished crime writers’ Literary Review
‘Her writing is never less than excellent’ Crime Time