Book: Chasing the Boogeyman

 Book: Chasing the Boogeyman

Author: Richard Chizmar

Pages: 336

This is my 233rd read for the year

What Amazon Says:

In the summer of 1988, the mutilated bodies of several missing girls begin to turn up in a small Maryland town.  The grisly evidence leads police to the terrifying assumption that a serial killer is on the loose in the quiet suburb.  But soon a rumor begins to spread that the evil stalking local teens is not entirely human.  Law enforcement, as well as members of the FBI, are certain that the killer is a living, breathing madman - and he's playing games with them.  For a once peaceful community trapped in the depths of paranoia and uspicion, it feels like a nightmare that will never end.  Recent college graduate Richard Chizmar returns to his hometown just as a curfew is enacted and a neigborhood watch is formed.  Amid preparing for his wedding and embarking on a writing career, he soon finds himself thrust into a real-life horror story.  Inspired by the terrifying events, Richard writes a personal acocunt of the serial killer's reign of terror, unaware that these events will continue to haunt him for years to come.  A clever, terrifying, and heartrending work of metafiction, this book is the ultimate marriage between horror fiction and true crime.

This was a great read.  I had to actual google that this was a work of fiction because of the way it was written like true crime.  There are some true parts - Richard did go back to his hometown after college and before he got married.  And he did live in Edgewood Maryland.  There was no Boogeyman, BUT there was a guy who would break into people's houses and watch people sleep in the 1980s in that town, and that is where he got the start of his story.  There are 2 more books in this series, and I am going to read those to see where it ends up.

Stars: 4.5