Carpenter called it The Shape. Jung called it The Shadow. Keller called it The Dark Silence. Since humankind began to entertain, the darkness that haunts every existence has been one of the most popular forms of art. Everyone has their own Boogeyman. For some, it is the bottle or drip of narcotic addiction, others obsessively fear their own vanity, while few actually encounter tangible monsters. Author Richard Chizmar gave readers a new face of fear with his international best-selling novel, Chasing the Boogeyman. Chizmar brilliantly blurred the lines between fact and fiction with a meta-style presentation that had locals googling the history of Edgewood, Maryland, for information on crimes that never took place. Becoming the Boogeyman furthered the lore as a sensational sequel that brought the horror right into the home of the main character, Chizmar himself. The eagerly awaited conclusion to this terror trilogy arrives this October. Will the celebrated scribe be able to maintain the ferocious fear that has made readers leave their porch lights on as dusk descends upon the security of their homes?
Famous serial killer, Joshua Gallagher, has escaped prison and is back in the wild, where his notoriety is causing absolute mayhem. With the monster being spotted in every shadow, the Chizmar family becomes prisoners in their own home, while law enforcement scrambles in desperation to hunt, capture, or kill Gallagher along with his secret society of disciples. Having both profited and lied about his relationship with the masked murderer, Richard Chizmar begins a slow spiral into personal depression, anxiety, and desperation. A media frenzy explodes right in time for Fourth of July celebrations. Eyes from the law, fellow neighbors, and his own family, stare silent accusations into Chizmar’s mind as the author attempts to write a conclusion to the real-life terror tale. Always several steps ahead, the time has returned for the Boogeyman to write his own sinister sonnet.
Killing the Boogeyman is a fantastic, blood-soaked, intimate psychological journey into the mind of madmen, both hero and villain. Once again, Chizmar paints a portrait of pain seen through his own frenzied mind, the eyes of his family, his friends, law enforcement, and a public that is both frightened and captivated with the non-stop terror train that chooses their hometown as its doomed destination. The format is a terrific choice, with the narrative bouncing back between first person perspective, interviews with Gallagher, media messages, and interactions with characters both new and old. This non-linear style keeps a pulse-pounding pace, setting the series apart from the saturated market of fictional masked marauders. It will be easy for readers to suspend disbelief as the author goes to great lengths to make a seemingly impossible scenario become incredibly plausible. In an introduction to the novel, Chizmar explains that though this is a work of fiction, much of his real-life persona bleeds into many pages. This is what makes any Boogeyman fascinating. It is the battle between light and dark that rages in the depths of humanity. Refreshing, and a tad bit frightening, to know that Richard Chizmar’s SHAPE is hovered over a keyboard…sitting along his SHADOW…writing in DARK SILENCE.
Scream Score: 9/10