Beast - Six Stories #4 by Matt Wesolowski.

Beast - Six Stories #4 by Matt Wesolowski

Six stories is a darkly different and daring contemporary thriller series.

Beast is part of the six stories series, published by Orenda Books. (They could almost be called Sick stories as they are all dark and devious and pretty much a very modren take on the gothic horror genre) The previous 3 books are, in order, Six Stories #1, Hydra #2, Changeling #3 and Beast is number 4. 

It can be read as a stand alone book, but to be honest once you've read it and loved it, you're going to be desperate to read the other 3, so you may as well read them in order. If you're new to this authors work, I envy you, because I had to wait patiently after reading each Six stories novel, for him to write another - You're going to be able to binge read all 4 if you choose to - go for it - enjoy!

Six stories is a Podcast series created by online journalist Scott King, who deliberately keeps as low a profile as possible whilst investigating for his popular podcasts, where he takes on a cold crime case from a few years ago. All the stories he chooses link closely to some kind of eerie urban legend and he recreates interest in the crime by interviewing six people who were involved at the time. Thus retelling the story in six different voices - six stories. 

The authors ability to speak in many voices gives a uniqueness to each and every version of the same event, which at first may seem repetitive but, new facts emerge every time. The books are refreshingly and uncompromisingly up to date.

In Beast, Scott King begins to unravel a murder mystery which took place in 2018, during the cold spell we will all remember, which became known as The Beast From the East. In a small rundown seaside town in the North East of England a young, popular vlogger Elizabeth Barton was found murdered in a notorious abandoned building known locally as the Vampire tower. Her frozen stiff body was discovered with her decapitated head on her knee. 3 local youths were convicted of this hideous crime which they continue to insist was merely a prank, which went very very wrong. But they are believed to have been part of a cult. As he begins his investigations it emerges that Elizabeth was taking part in a bizarre online social media craze which went viral, in which participants take part in a series of increasingly weird and dangerous dares.

Its so hard to describe the story without giving too much away. So I'll tell you what I can without making any spoilers.

The Setting.

The Author recreates the stifling, claustrophobic feel of life in a bleak, dying Northern smalltown, which makes Broadchurch seem positively cosmopolitan! Where there is little hope of a good future if you don't have the strong desire to escape or the imagination to carve out a career on-line. Yet there is an ultra contemporary and up to date theme running through the book. Like many run down pit villages in the North East, Ergarth is all boarded up shops, hanging around on street corners and a few staple local businesses around which life, not so much revolves as staggers - in main a former pastie factory, and a nasty, notorious, abbatoir (I will offer a warning here, there is a chapter set in this abbatoir where graphic scenes of animal slaughter made me baulk and skim read this part, If, like me you are sensitive to animal cruelty, you have been warned)

The Characters

As Scott King interviews 6 people and there are many other characters whose voices join in the storyteling, there are quite a lot of folk to get your head around, but he has this wonderful ability to paint his characters with unique voices and who speak in local dialect with all the Ums and Errs, dialect and swearing which make them seem incredibly real.

The Legend

This is where the real story lies, an urban myth which may have grown around fact or have been woven from bored minds with too little to do, there is no doubt that the story of the Ergarth Vampire is chilling and macabre and believed by many. This lends a very spooky and terrifying atmosphere to the whole book and you won't want to read it, whilst alone in the house with a howling wind outside.

I was going to write just a short review and yet I've rambled on and still haven't said half of what the book made me think and feel. So I'll just say - brilliant, go read it and enjoy but don't expect it to be an easy ride. Thought provoking and clever throughout this book deserves to tell its own six stories.

My thanks go to @AnneCater of #RandomThings for proving my review copy via OrendaBooks

The Blurb

Elusive online journalist Scott King examines the chilling case of a young vlogger found frozen to death in the legendary local ‘vampire tower’, in another explosive episode of Six Stories…

In the wake of the 'Beast from the East' cold snap that ravaged the UK in 2018, a grisly discovery was made in a ruin on the Northumbrian coast. Twenty-four-year-old vlogger, Elizabeth Barton, had been barricaded inside what locals refer to as 'The Vampire Tower', where she was later found frozen to death.

Three young men, part of an alleged 'cult', were convicted of this terrible crime, which they described as a 'prank gone wrong'. However, in the small town of Ergarth, questions have been raised about the nature of Elizabeth Barton's death and whether the three convicted youths were even responsible.

Elusive online journalist Scott King speaks to six witnesses – people who knew both the victim and the three killers – to peer beneath the surface of the case. He uncovers whispers of a shocking online craze that held the young of Ergarth in its thrall and drove them to escalate a series of pranks in the name of internet fame. He hears of an abattoir on the edge of town, which held more than simple slaughter behind its walls, the tragic and chilling legend of the ‘Ergarth Vampire'…

Both a compulsive, taut and terrifying thriller, and a bleak and distressing look at modern society's desperation for attention, Beast will unveil a darkness from which you may never return…