Reviews

Echoes of Lies by Jo Bannister

bet27's review

2.0

The plot was intriguing at first, but the characters got on my nerves after a while--too pompous or diffident, and too often repeating themselves. I wanted to quit reading so many times, but chose to see it through--and not for much pay off. I rather liked the first book in her Hazel Best series, but I definitely won't be reading any more in this series.

nocto's review

I really enjoyed Jo Bannister's Castlemere series but I had a few reservations about trying other books by her in case I didn't find them as interesting or gripping. I think I was wrong to be worried but I still didn't like this as much as I do the Castlemere series.

This book is about what happens after Brodie Farrell, who runs a service called Looking for Something?, finds a conman for one of his victims but then discovers that the "conman" has been all but murdered afterwards. Missing persons aren't really Brodie's line of work, she spends more time finding matching glasses, lost ponies and first editions. As I expect from Bannister the characters were wonderful and the plot a bit over the top but basically sound. I enjoyed the seaside setting. I think the plot got lost a bit towards the end and wondered why things were getting dragged out for so long. There are a couple of decent twists near the end but they went on for longer than I felt that they should have done which made them seem less twist-like.

Basically a pretty good book though not as good as the Castlemere books and it doesn't put me off trying more of the non-Castlemere books.

bookishfifi's review

3.0

Read in hospital, from inpatient library.

graculus's review

3.0

This is one of those books where I'm almost certain I'd read it before, since it's the first in a series, but then I didn't remember what happens as I was reading it this time so maybe I'm getting it confused with something else...

Anyway, the main character in Echoes of Lies is Brodie Farrell, formerly married to a lawyer but now divorced and trying to make a living by finding things and people. What she doesn't realise, when asked to find a particular man who's being blamed for committing fraud, is that her talents have been turned to bad use - this only comes to light when the man she identified, a high school maths teacher called Daniel Hood, is tortured and left for dead.

Brodie is appalled by how she's been used and resolves to first of all make recompense to Daniel and then to find the people who did this to him. The two of them end up in a somewhat uneasy friendship, with Brodie and Daniel getting deeper and deeper into the mystery of a millionaire's missing grandchild.

I liked Brodie as a character very much, although Daniel annoyed me greatly because most of the time in Echoes of Lies, he's written as just too gosh-darned perfect, and that's not an attractive quality in a character with whom you're supposed to be empathising. The series continues in [b:True Witness|785162|True Witness|Jo Bannister|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178325962s/785162.jpg|771160] and I expect I'll carry on, unless the annoyance factor grows too large in the future.