The Echo by Minette Walters (1998-04-01)

Homeless man Billy Blake dies of starvation inside wealthy architect Amanda Powell s garage, leading her into a strange obsession with discovering how he came to be there and why he didn t call for help Her inquiries lead her to journalist Michael Deacon, who slowly becomes suspicious of Amanda s motives and the fact that she only became rich following her husband s death.

This was the first Minette Walters book I had read Though I liked the book, and her style of writing, I thought she spent a GREAT deal of time on the problems of the tabloid reporter Deacon , the homeless teenager he takes under his care Terry , and the peeping Tom sexually inexperienced little man he works with that he also takes in and tried to help The mystery of the dying man Billy Blake seems to be secondary to the problems of these other characters Still a good read, though.

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 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 [...]

Psychological descriptions of the characters in the novel are marvelous.I recommend this novel to everybody.Buy it as soo as possible by kindle for computer.

In what I found to be one of Walter s confusing plots, The Echo begins with reports of two missing persons James Streeter, a financial institution extortionist and Peter Fenton, a Foreign Office diplomat Bearing these two unsolved mysteries in mind, when a homeless man dies of starvation in the garage of Amanda Powell, resident of an exclusive private estate bordering the Thames in London s old docklands, the identity of the dead man becomes an unsolvable enigma Squatting in an abandoned wareho [...]

Snappy and interesting in many places, The Echo s flaws make it all the disappointing The missing persons based plot starts well but gets and 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 companio [...]