Readers Write

We enjoy reading your comments and questions about Minette's books and we think other fans will, as well! If you have one you'd like to share about this book, please send it to:

comments@minettewalters.co.uk

Q. Dear Minette: I am writing to you in regards to your book The Echo. I have just read it and have come across a question that I have not been able to let go of so I thought I would write to you in hopes that you might be able to find the time to answer it for me. In the book in chapter three at the end of the chapter there is a reference to a Mrs Metcalfe in Cape Town, South Africa. Then she is never read about again until the very last chapter of the book. My question to you is what does she have to do with the story?
Selena, in Canada

A. Dear Selena:
Mrs Felicity Metcalfe is Marianne Filbert, who is waiting in vain for her lover, James Streeter, to join her in Capetown. If you read the book again, I think you will find the connection is clear.

Best wishes -- Minette

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Jo, in Canada

I feel so "at home" in your literary world. It is like stepping through the "Looking Glass" and finding a whole world that is familiar as an old comfy slipper! ... I wanted to email you and let you know how wonderful my discovery of you and your stories has been! A librarian at our local public library "turned me on" to you, and I stop by her desk and tell her how grateful I am that she did almost every time I go in to the library. I have just begun The Echo and stayed up half the night to keep reading on and on. So, from a new and enthralled reader, the deepest, most sincere"thank you" imaginable. "May I have some more?" I feel like Oliver Twist. "Please, Ma'am, might we have some more?"

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Q. Dear Minette: We have been reading The Echo for our mystery book club this month. I would be curious to find out why you gave it the title you did. -- Rudi, in the US

A. Dear Rudi:
I called the book The Echo because, even though I put it into a modern context, the story 'echoes' the Oedipus trilogy.

Best wishes -- Minette

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Cindy, in the US
My book club chose to read The Echo for our July novel. I have never read your work before and am now hooked. Thank you for a wonderful story and memorable characters. I'll be picking up your current novel on my next trip to the bookstore!

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Michael, in Austria
I'm from Austria and I'm 16. Recently, I have read one of your books - The Echo - and I was fascinated by it! I'm not really a person who reads very much (especially not in English), and I've never heard from you before I have chosen to read this book for my reading list for my matura and I was fascinated by it! I find your style excellent and the book is well understandable even for me, whose mother tongue isn't English!

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John, in the UK
Minette Walters' books only get better by each book but that's only if you read them in their order of printing, which I have so far.

I found The Echo very much of today's world and couldn't wait to read the next chapter. The world in this book was not just rich and poor, us or them, but who we are today. What would anyone do in this atmosphere of sex, loneliness or homeless? Nothing, except get on with their lives as the characters do. If you're like me, you'll find you can't put this book down until you've finished it!

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Leif-Rune Strandell
Chairman
Sällskapet Deckarvännerna

Dear Minette:

I am the chairman of a literary society for the benefit of readers of detection stories, The Society of Detection Friends, founded 1975 by readers, editors of publishing companies and a few authors. We meet once a month in Stockholm, having authors of crime novels as guests and sometimes police officers, experts in forensic medicine and others who can say something about crime in fiction and fact.

Now and then we undertake a bigger task. In the autumn of 2003, we had a 20-hour cruise in the Baltic, Stockholm-Alandia. The theme was legal aspects of The Echo.

We staged a trial (following Swedish, not British legal procedure) with the book as facts in the case. We hade a CID officer (also a crime writer) as an expert policeman, as prosecutor one of the society's members took on the job (now retired from being the head of the state attorney), a lawyer interested in criminal history took the role as defending counsel, and as judge the chief of one of the criminal courts in Sweden (former highest legal adviser in the Swedish administration) .

As you can see, we had competent actors1

Unfortunately, we lacked the witnesses, but relied on the book.

How did it end? In the book, Amanda Powell had taken back her confession of the two murders.

The court was quite clear: she was found not guilty of the death of her lover, because of her right to defend herself in connection with rape. She was found guilty not of murder but of accidentally causing her husband's death when she pushed him so he fell down the stairs.

The legal experts doubted that a prosecutor could go to court with the lack of factual evidence, not very reliable witnesses and a lot of hearsay.

But they liked the task, and we all had an interesting and intellectually stimulating boat trip.

Minette responds:

Dear Leif-Rune:

How fascinating! I'd have enjoyed being in the jury. In the book, Deacon knows Amanda will never face trial - almost certainly for the reasons you suggest - because when she withdraws her confession the prosecution has no case to argue. But as I'm sure you appreciated, the story is more about natural justice - the fact that a murderer's conscience continues to trouble him or her, whether what they've done is punished or even known about - and redemption can only begin when the murder is admitted.

I conceived The Echo as a loose interpretation of the Oedipus trilogy with Billy Blake as Oedipus, and Deacon, Lawrence, Terry and Barry as the chorus who explain the tragedy of a man who murdered his father then married his mother. When his wife/mother hanged herself, Oedipus blinded himself with a pin, before wandering into the wilderness with a child, much as Billy does. However, in my interpretation, Amanda's role is as much to achieve redemption for Billy, as his role is to achieve it for her. They were, after all, both murderers.

Keep up the good work! Best wishes, Minette

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Bengt Heurlin, in Sweden

Dear Minette:

I also took part in the tour mentioned above and I can assure you that we had great fun. It was interesting to read a book more carefully and closer than I usually do.

It was also thrilling to read that you used the Oedipus tragedy for your plot. I didn't make this connection before, but now I see it.

My contributions to the program were two:

- I made a list of all the persons in The Echo. When I read Russian authors I feel I have to make such a list, since persons have several names.

When there are many people in a book I often find that a list is a help. Lindsey Davis always (?) has a list in her books, and I like that.

- I also made a little competition: "What do you know about Minette Walters' books?" On the paper I wrote a list of all your books, and the
"Friends" were supposed to combine the title with a fact from the book, e.g. "The murder of a black woman". I enjoyed myself when I made the test; but the "Friends" were not all that happy when they tried to find the correct answers!