The Echo – Minette Walters Free Audiobook

Written by Minette Walters
Read by Simon Prebble
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Publisher: Recorded Books Audio
Released: Jul 27, 2000
Length: 11 hours

Five years after architect Amanda Powell’s husband vanishes amid cries of embezzlement, a homeless man calling himself Billy Blake crawls into her garage and, in full view of her well- stocked freezer, starves himself to death.

Falling-star journalist Michael Deacon, sent by his muckraking editor at The Street to get a story about the repentant Thatcherite who paid for a stranger’s cremation, doesn’t manage to make Amanda weep, but he comes away fascinated both by this enigmatic woman—what secrets is she hiding under that handsome exterior? does she think Billy was her vanished husband? or is she trying to expiate his sins by paying for Billy’s obsequies?—and by street preacher/petty thief Billy—what demons of his own led him to mortify himself?

Why did he choose this place to die? who was he before he became a messianic beggar? Deacon buries himself in the story only to see unexpected figures—an underaged street kid Billy had befriended, a lawyer he’d once crossed swords with over euthanasia, a pathologically lonely photo archivist at The Street—surge and squiggle with shocking vitality, like mutating viruses.

To get at the truth about Amanda Powell and Billy Blake, Deacon will have to come to terms with an unholy series of surprises about all these figures, including himself. Walters, who’s spent too long in Ruth Rendell’s shadow, bids fair to break out of the pack with this teasing, impassioned puzzle, which shows her growing and broadening her range with a vitality as alarming as her characters’….Kirkus Review

Edgar Award-winner Minette Walters grips her readers’ emotions with her ever-heightening psychological suspense.

British actor Simon Prebble’s dramatic performance will keep you enthralled throughout the sinuous plot and the shattering finish.