With the first day of Fall upon us, I’ve settled into my spooky season reading since the start of September. I kicked things off with Zoje Stage’s Wonderland (which was excellent, by the way), and most recently picked up Richard Chizmar’s newest release, Chasing the Boogeyman. I wasn’t incredibly familiar with Chizmar’s work, aside from Road House 2: Last Call (2006) and his collaboration with Stephen King on Gwendy’s Button Box (2017), so I decided to give this one a go, and I am so glad I did, as it’s probably my favorite book of the year.
Chasing the Boogeyman is such a uniquely written book. The story takes a biographical viewpoint from Chizmar’s own young adult life in 1988, combining the real-life friends and family members from his own hometown of Edgewood, Maryland, with a fictional story focusing on a local serial killer known as “The Boogeyman.” The killer received his name after abducting and murdering a handful of teenage girls, without leaving a single trace of evidence behind.
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The book is told from the first-person perspective in a true crime documentary-style, and is so incredibly convincing, that I found myself jumping on Google multiple times to make sure the Edgewood Boogeyman wasn’t a real serial killer. Chizmar already has a talent for great character description and development, something I’d noticed in Gwendy’s Button Box, but using the source material of his own life in his descriptions painted a perfect picture of Edgewood and the life he lived there. Growing up in a small midwestern town myself, I could see every gas station, small neighborhood, and abandoned parking lot clearly in my mind. I left the book knowing his friends, knowing his family, knowing his town, and knowing him.
Sometimes in horror novels, authors will create chapters from the point of view from the monster or killer, and I appreciate that Chasing the Boogeyman never took that route. It never gave the Boogeyman a personality during the meat of the story, never gave us a clue or idea where he would appear next or who he would take. I felt myself in Chizmar’s shoes, thinking about how terrified and anxious I would be if someone abducted and murdered one of my neighbors, or I heard the scratches of my window locks being pried as I was laying in bed. I was so worried Chizmar was going to off the rails and change the viewpoint or add some silly twist. He didn’t, and because of that, the book was so amazingly chilling and effective. More than once, I looked up from my book and stared into the blackness of my backyard through my sliding glass door window, wondering if I’d even know if someone was back there watching me, waiting for his moment.
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As if his descriptions or personal experiences weren’t enough to convince the reader, he concludes every major segment with black & white photos of the area, including the fictional characters and crime scene settings created for the book, just to give it one more special touch of true crime realism. This effort was so creative and rewarding.
My biggest appreciation for this novel was Chizmar’s ability to make me feel so damned emotional. Calling it a true crime novel doesn’t do it justice, because the emotional storytelling is so focused and strong. You feel the dread and communal loss from everyone in this story, including Chizmar, who goes to great lengths in revealing heartbreaking parts of his life. It’s just a special book, and I’ve never read anything quite like it. It was like a fantastic blend of the true crime outlines of Michelle McNamara or Joseph Wambaugh, with the character description and connection of writers like Stephen King and Dan Simmons.
Overall, there’s nothing negative I can say about Chasing the Boogeyman. Readers will love it, regardless of if you’re a true crime, horror, mystery, or thriller fan. It has all the pieces and is one of my only five-star books of the year. I can’t wait to read more from Chizmar.
Chasing the Boogeyman released on August 17th, 2021, and is available at all major book retailers.
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