ReView: Chasing the Boogeyman by Richard Chizmar


Every once in a while, a book builds such a rich sense of place and time that you swear you’ve been there, you swear you really know the people you’re reading about. And because of that, your investment in the story feels like it has real stakes.

Chasing the Boogeyman by Richard Chizmar is one of those books; the way Chizmar tells this story makes it feel true and terrifying.

It’s hard to explain this book without giving too much away, so read this at your discretion. Chasing the Boogeyman is the story of a small town in Maryland shaken by a series of murders in their close-knit community. Told from the perspective of Chizmar and taking place in his own hometown, he essentially takes on the role of independent investigator, using his knowledge of the community, and his curiosity and passion for true crime to propel him forward. Elements of memoir, true crime, thriller, and domestic drama are all beautifully incorporated into the story.

This book was brilliant. I can safely say that I have never read anything like Chasing the Boogeyman before. I know many authors are inspired by their past, but the way that Chizmar is able to use his real past (where he came from, his own experience) to build the setting to tell a story with new and fictional elements was really exciting to me. In his writing, you can feel the love Chizmar has for his community and by sharing that the reader also becomes invested.

Even though I knew that some details about the story were created for this story, the book is written in such a way that feels all real AND genuinely scary. Numerous times I had to remind myself that this was a work of fiction.

Just like Chizmar’s hunt for the killer though (leading to a shocking and well-earned reveal), part of the mystery of the book itself was not knowing what was real and what wasn’t.

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