The Chalk Man

Author: C.J. Tudor

Publisher: Crown

Release Date: January 9, 2018

Rating: 4 Stars

Reviewer: Jessica Higgins

A new thriller for a new year!

Set in a small English village in 1986, Eddie has a small group of friends that act as normal friends do, but not everything in their little town is as it seems. After Fat  Gav’s birthday part, someone gives him a set of chalk, which entices the group to start defacing places with drawings of chalk men.  Then one day a drawing of chalk leads them to find a body in the woods.  The only thing never recovered was her head.

Fast forward 30 years, Eddie still lives in his childhood home with a lodger named Chloe. Two of the group stayed there as well and the other two went off.  The police had named their suspect in the murder shortly after and he committed suicide, so case closed.  But when one of the group members returns to town and then winds up dead, all the members receive drawings of chalk men in the mail, indicating the killer may still be around.  And maybe he wants to finish things up with them!

So, this book was like doing a new jigsaw puzzle. It started off really fast like building the border.  But once that was built, you have to start putting the pieces together, which takes a little bit longer than the border.  But then, after most of the pieces come together, the remaining bits just fall into place and it quickly finishes.  The book really resembled this process.  I was hooked at the beginning with the freak carnival accident and then everything sort of slowed down to shape what was going on.  The remnants of 1986 brought back a few memories of the 1980s and how different life really was at that time.  There were a lot of things going on in this sleepy little town and it was really interesting how it shaped out.  Not a lot of character development, but there was a good amount of suspense buildup at the end that was not disappointing.  The ending is definitely creepy!

There is a lot of harsh language throughout the book, an attempted rape scene, improper student relationship, and several references to abortion. I recommend this book for mature audiences.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher. The views and opinions expressed within are my own.