Audiobook Review – Hydra

From Goodreads:

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.

Again as this series is podcast based I opted to read it as an Audiobook. It works amazingly as an audiobook as the full cast really lends itself well to the podcast feel, You kind of forget it is a novel and get absorbed into the story like you are listening to a true crime podcast.

The podcast elements are meant to be exploring what would drive a young woman to kill her family. Was it a mental break, was it something more supernatural. We explore the case from 6 perspectives and audio snippets. All which lend different and personal elements to the case. I really liked the care taken when exploring Aria’s mental state. We get a lot of words directly from Aria herself. We really explore what can contribute to someone’s mental well being.

I think this one is a little darker than Six Stories, there is a slightly more sinister paranormal edge to it all. The Black-eyed kids were spine chilling and that combined with the events that were happening to our host as they tried to investigate the case. Both stories running through out the book were just so well constructed that you just ended up with such a fantastic Thriller. Its so haunting. The mix of urban legends, notes to the villainization of goth subculture of the mid 2000’s and the anonymous persecution of the host via online trolling, makes this an eerily relatable mystery, which makes the story even more spine-chilling.

It also has an ending that will leave you reeling. I honestly didn’t see it coming. Overall this was a fantastic book and a fantastic series. The audiobooks are just so immersive that just elevate the podcast formatting even more so I would really recommend you listen to these!