Six Stories: A Chilling Thriller Series

Kindle Customer: Not my usual genre. I felt like I was actually listening to a podcast. Twists and liked the different perspectives from each person interviewed.

United States on Oct 30, 2023

David Barnett: A podcast in book format consumed as an audiobook (in this case). Multiple stories are told of a tragic event of years past. Said tales converge and diverge, layers are gently applied to the whole grim drama and expectations are upended as we arrive at the revelations behind it all. I think I enjoyed it mostly but there are some caveats forthcoming.

To give it credit, there is a great sense of life as a teenager in 90's Britain in all its chaotic energy and blunt harshness. There is also a vivid rendering of the English countryside, misty and rainswept, overgrown and remote. The accounts themselves are distinctive and whilst they cover the same event, never fall into the trap of feeling too samey. The twist at the end is decent even if it left a few too many unanswered questions of its own in its wake.

All in all its a fine effort but at least for me, I didn't find it to be a great example of this format. Rashomon in the British woods is a novel pitch and while there were some decent stories being told by believable characters, I never felt like it became more than the sum of its parts. A lot of it hinged on the finale for me with the villain feeling a little by the...

United Kingdom on Oct 13, 2022

33SouthTextworks: I read the latest in the Six Stories series, Deity, in Feb 2021 and absolutely loved it. This is the first in the series, and I promised myself I’d check them out.

In this book, Scott King is just starting his podcasts and he’s got a great mystery to cover. It’s got creepy mountains, superstition, rebellious teens, a misunderstood loner, disused mines, and strange visions. Visions seen by small groups at a time, that seem to match… Is there something on the Fell?

(For those not in the UK, a ‘fell’ is a high and barren landscape feature, such as a mountain or moor-covered hill. The term fell has its origin from an Old Norse word for the parts of mountains above the treeline. There are different regions of fells in the UK.)

Six Stories sets out the format for Matt Wesolowski’s other works in the series, and a brilliant format it is. Based on the structure of a six-part podcast, each section covers an interview with a key person involved. Each reveals their part, which join together to make a whole, and from which the reader draws their conclusion on events. Proof positive that everyone sees things differently.

But this first one has an added...

United Kingdom on Jun 07, 2021

S Ellis: Book/Audiobook review of Matt Wesolowski’s Six Stories series.

I’ve just read/listened to 4 novels in 4 days, which is a rare thing for me these days. I’ve binged on the novels of Matt Wesolowski who is doing a rare mix of mystery, thriller, and both domestic and supernatural horror. The conceit of his series format is that each book is a 6-episode season of a true-crime podcast (a la Serial) raking over an iconic British cold case- but each mystery is intertwined with folklore, urban legends or strange sightings that tease a supernatural explanation. Each episode has the story of a witness to the crime and their 6 personal stories uncover deeper layers of the twisting mystery as more background is established and alternative explanations given and questions of unreliable narration arise. You as a reader/listener need to decide what is going on, and I love there is often an alternative explanation you could reach compared to the books. However each book is really an in-depth character study of the person at the centre of the crime but the Noirish question of whether they are victim or perpetrator (to steal Person of Interest’s tagline) remains unresolved till the...

United Kingdom on Apr 18, 2021

Zoé: This audiobook and book demands your respect and your time! I can imagine reading this book was intense but listening to the audiobook was just crazy! As the book is a series of podcasts, each chapter depicting the events from a different person’s point of view with interludes to the past and the discovery of the body. When listening to the audiobook, each character was “played” by a different actor and giving life to them. The fact this was an audiobook, you can not speed through the book, you have to wait for the narration to play out so when the intensity is ramped up you have to wait patiently for it all to play out. So when the fall out happens it shocked me and I think a few time I said Holy frogs in my car. I was forever wishing for traffic on my way to work so I didn’t have to stop listening! I also had to keep googling Six Stories because it felt so real. I felt like this podcast was telling us a story that actually happened, this is kudos to Matt’s writing for sure!

It is great to meet Scott King and his introduction to his podcast, taking us down memory lane to an unsolved murder that happened 20 years ago, not trying to solve the crime and discover the...

United Kingdom on Nov 11, 2019

WhatCathyReadNext: It’s a few weeks since I finished Six Stories, a book I’ve been looking forward to reading for a while. I wouldn’t usually wait this long before writing a review but I’ve found myself having conflicted feelings about the book. Partly this is because it’s had tons of glowing reviews which made me wonder if I’d missed something. Partly because I found myself not blown away by the book as much as I expected, or as much as others clearly have been.

The first of my many quandaries was whether the idea of a book that apes the format of a podcast – at least most of the time – is either brilliantly innovative or flawed. The idea of a podcast investigating unsolved murders is clearly not original and even the book blurb acknowledges the debt Six Stories owes to the wildly successful (although previously unknown to me) Serial podcast (which as it happens is about to start Series 3 soon). The character Scott King of Six Stories even has the same initials as the creator of Serial, Sarah Koenig. Plus it was pointed out to me that 'koenig' is the German for 'king'.

I’ll admit the author works hard to create convincing and distinctive dialogue for each of the...

United Kingdom on Sep 20, 2018

Elle G.: Six Stories is as original as they come. This book is told as if it were a podcast and conducts interviews with individuals who were close to a crime. Each "chapter" gives a new point of view on what could have happened to Tom Jeffries, a teenager who was found dead in Scarclaw Fell. In the beginning, I wasn't sure if I would like this book because I haven't read anything like it - ever. But the more in depth it became, and the closer I grew towards the individuals in this story, the more I started to really enjoy it. This book kind of reads like a true crime novel (if you're into that sort of book), but isn't as opened and shut in terms of the killer. Readers will actually begin putting the clues together themselves as they read this and come to their own conclusions on what may have happened to Tom. All and all, it's really cool! Now, as I mentioned it sort of readers like a true crime novel, but this is NOT what the book is. This is a work of FICTION (even though it FEELS like a real murder case). So don't worry if you aren't a true crime readers because that's not what the book is.

Anyway, I really enjoyed reading this one. As the interviews/story progressed I found...

United States on Mar 30, 2018

Nappy: Loved the book up to the twist at the end which seemed contrived and unnecessary to me.

United States on Jul 31, 2017

TripFictionTripFiction: Six Stories is a somewhat quirky, but extremely well written, thriller set around the imagined Scarclaw Fell in Northumberland.

In 1996 a tragic event happened. Fifteen-year-old Tom Jeffries went missing on the Fell one night – and his body was not discovered until a year later. Tom and five teenage friends, together with two adults, were spending a few days at Scarclaw Fell Woodland Centre (described by one character in the book as a ‘glorified barn’ – but actually a bit more desirable than that). They were part of a group informally called ‘The Rangers’ created by their parents to promote outdoor living and adventure. They were all normal teenage kids from mid 90s middle class backgrounds and, as such, into drinking alcohol, smoking cannabis, and the odd sexual encounter. But nothing apparently as sinister as murder.

The coroner’s verdict on Tom was, after a pretty cursory investigation by the authorities, recorded as accidental death, but fast forward twenty-one years to 2017. There is a radio podcast, with a cult following, called Six Stories. Its presenter, Scott King, takes an old unresolved mystery and explores it. Each mystery has six episodes...

United States on Mar 27, 2017