Chasing the Boogeyman by Richard Chizmar

“It’s like the guy sliced open a hole in the night,” one state trooper complained off the record, “and disappeared back into it.”

Have you ever read a nonfiction book and thought it read like fiction? Welcome to the exact opposite of that (sort of!). Chasing the Boogeyman by Richard Chizmar is a novel about a serial killer, but it is formatted as a true crime book. Chizmar was so successful in his formatting and writing that it took me a while to finally wrap my head around this concept and settle in for the ride. It was VERY well done! Added to the authenticity is the fact that he set the story in the town where he grew up, so the town’s history, his experiences growing up there and his family are all true.

When the story opens, it is the summer of 1988 in a small town in Maryland. Richard Chizmar has graduated from college and is living with his parents for the next six months. Shortly after he moves home, a teenage girl goes missing and is then found murdered. After the second girl goes missing and is found murdered, the town knows there is a serial killer in their midst. Richard befriends a local reporter and forms a friendship of sorts with Detective Harper, so he gets some not-for-public-knowledge details about the investigation. He and his parents are also being plagued with prank calls. As the “first edition” of the “true crime” book is published in 1990, the killer has not been found. Lucky for us (wink, wink), the updated edition is published in 2019 after the killer’s identity is discovered.

This book was so different from most suspense/mystery books. The true elements made it so real and while there was a feel of suspense throughout, the story was so much more than that. The small town setting in 1988 was captured perfectly. I really loved this story! I hope you do too!

Check out Chasing the Boogeyman by Richard Chizmar at the Library (https://catalog.lclibs.org/polaris/search/title.aspx…).