Customer Reviews

Echo

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

Ms. Walters is a wonderful writer and I've enjoyed all of her books. This one is quite different than her previous novels. In fact, I'm not sure it was a "classical" mystery or a social commentary on a variety of subjects (class, family, mental illness, the homeless, homosexuality, male-bonding, etc.). It's a well-written book, but the mystery was somewhat convoluted. About a third of the way into the book, I no longer cared about the mystery. I had a difficult time with Terry: He was far too precocious for 14 years old. I had a bigger problem believing that Terry could recite, verbatim, the conversations he had with Billy Blake; especially those reminisces that dealt with poetry and the "meaning of life" passages. My favorite character: Lawrence. He appears briefly, but it's a wonderful characterization. I loved the British slang, as well. One reason I like Ms. Walters: all of her characters, even her protagonists, are flawed individuals with their own set of phobias, problems, and issues. Will I read her, again? Absolutely.

Walters' books remind me a bit of Shakespeare's tragedies if we had come in on the story near the end. We work backwards to find out how they have gotten to this wretched point -- and we usually do meet them at rock bottom -- and then we watch them rise up just a little to grab one more time at their humanity before succombing to their ultimate fate.

Walters fascinates me because she starts with a cast of characters who appear to be generally awful people, or jerks. They aren't people we like, nor do we want to like them. And then she unfolds their stories for us, and forces us -- and her other characters -- to look behind the veneer at the more complete individual. Especially when we don't want to.

Barry is a good example in this book. While we are sympathetic with his emotional crippling due to life circumstances, we still dislike him. At the same time, Barry is human, and believable, and so we find ourselves drawn, if a bit squeamishly, into his misshapen life.

I place Walters with Elizabeth George, J. Wallis Martin, and Ruth Rendell as writers who write dark, psychological mysteries (and to some degree Laurie King's Kate Martinelli stuff fits here too.) They are neither light, nor comfortable, but they do satisfy on a deeper level.

Snappy and interesting in many places, The Echo's flaws make it all the more disappointing. The missing persons based plot starts well but gets more and more contorted until you simply can't follow and don't even care who was pretending to be who to whom and when and why. A couple of the main good guy characters are either totally unbelievable and/or totally off. A 14 yr old sexually & emotionally abused runaway found squatting in a homeless men's doss house transforms into a wise,

supportive, insightful companion who quotes and analyses William Blake. A repressed homosexual who publicly jerks off in people's gardens is just plain creepy and unlikeable. The whole atmosphere is just bland British mystery, to which the author attempts to give a contemporary edge by the use of bad language and gratuitously coarse supposed homosexual slang, but it doesn't really work. It probably made an OK BBC TV series, but for a book like this is trying to be, read one of the better Val McDermid books, or for that matter pretty much any Ruth Rendell book.

People seem either to love or hate this book. I have just completed the third listening to the tape narrated by Simon Prebble. Each time I have listened to the story I gained new insights into the characters and the story makes more sense. Minette Walters is among the most literate of writers. One cannot just casually listen or read like one would with typical formula pot boiler. In the end I am a big fan of Ms. Walters and of this book in particular. The only undeveloped part of the story is the inclusion of the woman pining away in Capetown South Africa. By inference this is the mysterious Ms. Philbert, who presumably got away with the $10 Million Pounds and is living in exile, waiting in vain for her lover to show. This was just a blind alley that could just as well have been skipped. It did not add anything to the story.

This psychological mystery is good, although it's not quite as good as Walters' other books. It is not short on emotion and intrigue, but I found the whole story to be generally less compelling. This may be a personal preference, but I just didn't care that much about the characters. I did enjoy the various underlying themes (greed, homelessness, etc.) which were quite thought provoking.

I came to this book with some trepidation. I don't like Walters' tendency to explore sadomasochistic themes; she seems to revel too much in them. But this one was a bit gentler. Yes, there was evil-doing, but it was leavened with learning, poetry (William Blake's). One of her better efforts.

I've read a lot of Minette Walter's books now, and I've enjoyed them all. The Echo was the first one I ever read, so I have a soft spot in my heart for it. I was intrigued by an extract of the first chapter, which prompted me to buy the book - something I've never regretted.

The Echo starts with the death of a homeless man - a death by natural cases. I found it odd to read a murder mystery which, for most of the book, has no murder. Minette Walters weaves a large cast of interesting characters, locations and events into a harmonious and satisfying conclusion. A worthy investment, I read this book regularly.

Do I recommend it? Indeed. Not only to anyone who may stumble across this review, but to all my friends and aquaintances. I have lent the book out to so many people, and all have said they enjoyed it. I wish she could write more quickly - there's too long to wait between her books, I find!

Excellent read. Intelligent, amusing, extraordinary character development. Not a dull moment. Can't wait to read more of her work.

For the first time, I find myself coming away from a Minette Walters mystery disappointed.

The Echo has an intriguing central mystery but it's just not well explored. Or maybe it's that the plot works too hard to tie some things together and connect two mysteries together. Either way, there are large chunks of the story that just tread water and don't add or subtract from the central mystery. It's not a page-turner like The Shape of Snakes or Fox Evil and there's not any one character you latch onto and enjoy learning more about like in those books. Overall, it was pretty disappointing.

Having just finished this book and having read all of Minette Walters other thrillers, I was intruiged by the reviews - this is a love it or hate it book. I loved it, but I have to admit it was very differently put together from previous books. Minette Walters does not write to a formula, her characters are very British and stereotypical they may seem but I have to say I certainly recognised them. The Echos of Michael Deacons life in the lives of the other characters was masterful.