Psychological noir and secrets go hand in hand like strawberries and cream, so hats off to bestselling American author Carter Wilson for creating the premise of his latest novel. Can you imagine a better set up than having your protagonist host a true-crime podcast whose premise is for anonymous guests to confess their guilty secrets? Well, Wilson could, and we’ll come to that in a minute.
Poe Webb runs the nation’s number-one ranked true-crime podcast from her home in Burlington, Vermont. Her boyfriend, Kip, manages the technical aspects and social media accounts. The premise of Tell Me What You Did is simple and effective; a short introduction from Poe, and then the anonymous guests have 15 minutes to confess their sins, however trivial or serious, before Poe draws more out of them using her interviewing skills and psychological knowledge of people’s need to unburden themselves.
To keep up the suspense, Poe doesn’t know what her guests want to talk about and she finds out in real time.
On the surface, things look pretty good for Poe. She’s in a stable relationship, her father is living a peaceful retirement about an hour’s drive away, and there’s no sign that her podcast goldmine is about to dry up anytime soon. Dig a little deeper, though, and the cracks appear.
She drinks a little more than she should, the trauma of her mother’s murder when she was 13 has left its scars, and Kip is increasingly frustrated that Poe won’t open up to him in the same way that he does to her. There’s a good reason for this because Poe has a secret and it’s a whopper: Poe is a murderer.
Poe’s father knows she escaped the house fire that engulfed her mother after the murder. What he doesn’t know is that Poe knew her mother was having an affair, and that she had snuck back to the house in the daytime in order to catch her mother out.
In the event she saw her mother’s lover stab her to death, and was taunted cruelly by him afterwards. What kept her going afterwards was the thought of revenge, and when she was old enough to leave home, Poe tracked him down to New York City where she trapped then killed him.
At least she thought she had. Poe’s latest guest, Ian Hindley, claims to be her mother’s killer. What’s more he claims to know what Poe did that fateful summer in New York, and gloats that he will get her to confess in a special episode to be streamed live.
Tell Me What You Did employs an effective narrative device. The chapters alternate between the climactic livestream where Hindley aims to force Poe in to her confession, and a chronological cat and mouse game between the two as Hindley tries to manoeuvre Poe in to a position where she has no choice but to comply with his demands.
Despite knowing that the confrontation between the two characters will take place, there is no shortage of tension in the story. Despite help from the local police (handicapped by Poe’s inability to truly explain her relationship to Hindley without incriminating herself) and her father, Poe is under increasing pressure to comply with what Hindley wants.
The story gives Wilson a vehicle to explore themes of guilt and retribution and asks if revenge is even desirable. These explorations are put to the side somewhat as the narrative races towards its climax. Wilson does well to keep your attention in a story with so few characters, but the downside is that it can feel a little repetitive at times.
If psychological thrillers are your jam, then we suggest looking at one of the best the genre has to offer, Dear Child by Romy Hausmann.
Poison Pen Press
Print/Kindle
£4.68
CFL Rating: 4 Stars
