Book Review | Hydra

Quite a big change of pace with this book, definitely a good book for the season.

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Hydra
Matt Wesolowski

Elusive online investigative journalist Scott King investigates the case of Arla Macleod, who bludgeoned her family to death, in another episode of the chilling, award-winning Six Stories series.

A family massacre
A deluded murderess
Five witnesses
Six stories
Which one is true?

One cold November night in 2014, in a small town in the north west of England, 21-year-old Arla Macleod bludgeoned her mother, father and younger sister to death with a hammer, in an unprovoked attack known as the Macleod Massacre.

Now incarcerated at a medium-security mental-health institution, Arla will speak to no one but Scott King, an investigative journalist, whose Six Stories podcasts have become an internet sensation.

King finds himself immersed in an increasingly complex case, interviewing five witnesses and Arla herself, as he questions whether Arla’s responsibility for the massacre was a diminished as her legal team made out.

As he unpicks the stories, he finds himself thrust into a world of deadly forbidden ‘games’, online trolls, and the mysterious black-eyed kids, whose presence seems to extend far beyond the delusions of a murderess…

Dark, chilling and gripping, Hydra is both a classic murder mystery and an up-to-the-minute, startling thriller, that shines light in places you may never, ever want to see again.

Bookshop.org | Goodreads | The StoryGraph | Amazon

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It has been a long time since I read the first book in this series, I just remember that I enjoyed Six Stories but not many details. So I started Hydra with a fresh slate and didn’t have any expectations, well I expected to enjoy it but nothing other than that.

I’ll admit I wasn’t sure of it to start with, I think it was because we started with audio files from Arla and then she was the first interview and I felt like I needed a little more grounding in the story before getting her perspective. However, it didn’t take long before I was hooked and didn’t want to put it down, desperate to see how these different accounts would add to what we know about Arla and her possible motives for what she did to her family.

One thing that came flooding back to me as I was making my way through the book is how amazing Matt Wesolowski is at crafting an eerie and intense atmosphere. I loved the creepy otherworldly vibes this book has, and the weird nostalgia of younger years playing games at sleepovers that were mostly nonsense but being hyped up on so much collective anticipation that we would freak ourselves out and not be able to sleep.

I also loved the menacing undertone from the anonymous people trying to put Scott King off his series. The tension that added to the story as we got to know more about Arla through the different perspectives and wondered about what connected them was exquisite. I don’t know if it is just because it’s been a few years since I read the first book but this one feels darker and I know that I got chills from some of the situations that come up and that I won’t be able to get them out of my head for a while.

Hydra is a chilling but captivating book that will easily have you hooked.

Reviews of other books by Matt Wesolowski
Six Stories