The Distant Echo

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 shell 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 McDermids 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 'McDermids 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 todays most accomplished crime writers Literary Review Her writing is never less than excellent Crime Time

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.