What could go wrong with a business like this one? To Brodie’s dismay, the answer is, quite a lot. She is hired to find a man she was told had conned a woman out of fifteen thousand pounds. She does find the man, Daniel Hood. Hood is subsequently abducted, tortured and left for dead. Hood had not conned anyone and now he was close to death because of her efforts. As Hood slowly recovers, Brodie offers to find his abductors to assuage her guilt. Hood’s reaction surprises Brodie. He does indeed want to find his tormentors, but not to exact justice. He wants to know why they abducted him. He is interested only in discovering the truth.

Jo Bannister is an accomplished British crime writer who has written a number of successful stand alone novels in addition to her excellent Castlemire series. Echoes of Lies is the first in a series featuring Brodie Farrell and Daniel Hood. Brodie is a complex individual who, although she is obviously quite intelligent, makes costly mistakes. Her attempts to deal with the consequences of her actions provide education and entertainment for the reader. In addition, Daniel Hood is a man who thinks outside the box. His seemingly offhand reaction to an alarming situation is surprising. What makes this man tick? The interplay between these two people, who react first with their minds and then with their emotions, produces a compelling story. There is nothing sexual in their relationship, yet their thought and interactions are intimate.

The intellectual backgrounds of her main characters allow Ms. Bannister to interject interesting information about a wide variety of subjects. Daniel is a math teacher at a boys’ school, who has a passionate interest in astronomy. Brodie, a trained solicitor, has a comprehensive knowledge of the British legal system. Thus the reader is treated to a number of interesting facts on these topics in addition to a first class mystery.

The setting of the novel is Britain, and the reader does not easily forget this fact. In addition to the usual differences in speech between British English and American English, the customs and ways of life and the landscape are vividly portrayed. The circumstances of the novel could not be transferred to anywhere else in the world and remain realistic.

Ms. Bannister involves the reader emotionally in the lives of her characters. We come to car deeply what happens to Brodie and Daniel. It is not sufficient to discover why Daniel has been abducted and tortured. It is important to find out why he thinks the way he does. What enables an individual to react as dispassionately as Daniel does to a situation in which he has been brutally victimized?

Echoes of Lies is a reprint of a book originally published in 2001. Several other titles in the series have been written in the interim. Do not be tempted to read the later titles first. The development of Brodie, Daniel and some of the minor characters in the earlier books will enrich one’s entertainment in the later ones. Although this novel is essentially a cerebral one, there is enough action to appeal to thriller lovers as well.

--Andy Plonka