Review: Hydra

Hydra by Matt Wesolowski
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

“Welcome to Six Stories. I’m Scott King.”

The second in the ‘Six Stories’ series, ‘Hydra’ is just as good and as satisfying as its predecessor. As in Matt Wesolowski’s previous novel, the story is told as six episodes of a podcast which looks at a crime “from six different perspectives, seeing the events that unfolded through six pairs of eyes” and, as before, in printed form, the novel reads as transcripts of these podcasts but really comes to life in audiobook format.

Hydra is not so much a whodunnit but a whydunnit. We know from the outset that ‘the Macleod Massacre’ was carried out by Arla Mcleod, who bludgeoned her family to death with a hammer. The question, and the heart of Scott King’s podcast investigation, is what drove Arla to murder her parents and sister, what in her history brought her to that point. The episodes are again linked by an additional narrative, in this case a recording of Arla herself which has been uploaded to a torrent site and which eventually collides with the podcast narrative to reveal the truth behind the story.

The conceit of presenting the story as a ‘true crime’ podcast is immensely entertaining with the added bonus that, as the story is fictional, the twists can be tightly woven into the story rather than, as in some real podcasts, it feeling like information is being withheld in order to make the story more dramatic. It is a balancing act, but one which Wesolowski performs admirably. It will be interesting to see where he goes if and when ‘Six Stories’ comes to an end but, at the moment, I am hugely enjoying the series and have the third high on my ‘to be listened to’ list.

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