Becoming the Boogeyman
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- 3,99 €
Publisher Description
'Terrific storytelling' STEPHEN KING
'Masterfully blends reality and imagination to deliver something wholly original and totally gripping from start to finish. Don't miss this edge-of-your-seat chiller that will keep you guessing - and guessing again' LISA UNGER
'I WASN'T WORRIED ABOUT THE MYSTERIOUS BLACK BAG THAT MORNING... NO BIG DEAL. UNTIL I GOT CLOSER - AND THEN I KNEW BETTER.'
Back in the Summer of 1988, a young Richard Chizmar was catapulted into the centre of a living nightmare as the serial killer Joshua Gallagher - dubbed by the media as The Boogeyman - stalked his tranquil Maryland town.
These days, Chizmar enjoys a certain level of notoriety himself as he is the only person to whom Josh Gallagher will talk, on or off the record. Chizmar likes to visit Gallagher in prison, as there are plenty of other nameless victims out there and Gallagher's confession would bring closure to grieving loved ones.
But when a masked figure leaves a horrifying calling card in the front of his home, Chizmar finds there is a price for dancing with the devil. It's clear that there is a new player in the game which The Boogeyman controls . . .
Both a riveting tale of obsession and an unflinchingly honest exploration of modern society's true-crime infatuation, Becoming the Boogeyman spares no one from the glare of the spotlight.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this clever but overstuffed sequel to Chizmar's 2021 bestseller Chasing the Boogeyman, the author again brings a metafictional approach to the serial killer thriller. Decades after the first book's Boogeyman killings in Edgewood, Md., journalist and horror writer Rich—who is closely patterned on Chizmar—finds a garbage bag filled with human remains while walking his dog. They belong to Annie Riggs, the sole survivor of the Boogeyman's 1980s killing spree, and Rich, who became a key figure in that investigation, is thrust back into the spotlight. As media attention about a potential copycat killer starts to overwhelm Rich and threaten his marriage, more girls begin to disappear; when their bodies are found, each is missing an ear. Reluctantly, Rich investigates once again. Sections about Rich's childhood in Edgewood (formatted as bits of an in-progress memoir) possess a certain Stand by Me charm, and his visits to the Boogeyman in prison vibrate with the intensity of Clarice Starling and Hannibal Lecter's interactions in The Silence of the Lambs. But the novel's ambitious structure, which folds news clippings and reviews of the last book into the narrative, sometimes weighs down the central mystery too much. Still, fans of the first book will likely be satisfied.
