Monday, December 09, 2024

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Echo by Tracy Clark


Tracy Clark’s latest book is Echo (Thomas & Mercer, December 2024). Set in a Chicago winter, her third story about police detective Harriet Foster has dual story lines of revenge and attempts to right long-ago wrongs.

Foster doesn’t have time to take her coat off one Sunday morning, she is called to a field on the edge of the Belverton College campus, where a student lies dead. Brice Collier is the only son of the fabulously wealthy Sebastian Collier, who owned the nearby house that Brice and some of his friends shared during the scholastic year. Brice was known for his over-the-top Saturday night parties. Because of his father’s money, the college took a hands-off stance on anything affecting Brice, giving him the illusion that he could do or say anything he wanted without repercussion. This time he seems to have gotten too drunk to realize he was outdoors and died of alcohol poisoning and hypothermia. The fact that another student living in the same house died in similar circumstances 30 years previously did not escape the police.

While Foster and her new partner, a certified badass named Vera Li, try to pin down the students that were at the party, all of whom are curiously evasive about who was where when, Foster is getting anonymous phone calls. The male caller is making vague threats about revenge for past misdeeds and claims the death of her former partner is a punishment for Foster. Her recently dead partner was determined to have committed suicide, Foster believes she was killed by this anonymous caller. That the police department refused to look into the calls and Foster’s suspicions noticeably strains her relationship with her manager.

Grieving for her dead partner, Foster works relentlessly on the Collier case, finding more and more parallels between the old case and the new, while she tries to identify her anonymous caller and his motives after hours. Her new partner confronts her on the brutal pace she is undertaking and insists on helping identify the anonymous tormentor to remove the distraction from Foster’s life.  

Clark creates clear, well-defined, and credible characters. Even the background members of the Homicide group who don’t get much time on the page stand out distinctly from each other. The old school detective who antagonizes everyone but becomes an emotional basket case over his partner’s sick child is a perfect example. The cold distant Sebastian Collier and his troubleshooter Lange are two more. Vera Li is a fine invention, she and Foster make a powerhouse of a team. I look forward to seeing more of her. As always in Clark’s books, the city of Chicago is a powerful secondary character.

An inventive use of the revenge motive, a crisp narrative, and fine characters. This book made the Washington Post list of best 2024 mysteries for a good reason. Recommended.

 


·         Publisher: Thomas & Mercer (December 3, 2024)

·         Language: English

·         Paperback: 364 pages

·         ISBN-10: 1662517327

·         ISBN-13: 978-1662517327

 

 

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/3ZsDMf1 

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2024 

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

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