Becoming the Boogeyman
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4.6 • 40 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
The “worthy and frightening sequel” (Stephen King) to the acclaimed and “unforgettable” (Harlan Coben) New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling novel Chasing the Boogeyman.
Back in the summer of 1988, a young Richard Chizmar was catapulted into the center of a living nightmare as the serial killer Joshua Gallagher—dubbed by the media as “The Boogeyman”—stalked his tranquil Maryland town. A lot has changed in the intervening years.
These days, Chizmar enjoys a certain level of celebrity and notoriety himself, being the only person that an incarcerated Josh Gallagher will speak to on or off the record. Chizmar likes to believe that he’s doing the world a public service by visiting Gallagher in prison, as there are plenty of other nameless victims out there who Gallagher might finally admit to killing and bring closure to grieving loved ones, and a dark rhythm and routine begin to take hold. But Chizmar eventually finds there’s a price to be paid for dancing with the devil, when a masked figure with all the hallmarks of Gallagher’s reign of terror from thirty years ago now leaves a horrifying calling card in front of Chizmar’s home, and it’s clear there’s a new player on the board in the ongoing game that the Boogeyman controls…
A riveting, haunting sequel to the New York Times bestselling thriller Chasing the Boogeyman, this is a tale of obsession and the adulation of evil, exploring modern society’s true crime infatuation with unflinching honesty, sparing no one from the glare of the spotlight. Will those involved walk away from the story of a lifetime in order to keep their loved ones safe? Or will they once again be drawn into a killer’s web? As the story draws to its shattering conclusion, only one person holds all the answers—and he just may be the most terrifying monster of them all.
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.
Customer Reviews
Great Sequel
Couldn’t wait for this to come out and it did not disappoint. It was like hanging out with old friends (and some new ones too). It was terrifying at times but having grown up in the northeast, the nostalgia coming-to-terms with the present was downright comforting. Please Mr Chizmar, continue to write in this unique style and keep the Edgewood universe alive.
Better than the first?!
Rarely is a sequel as good as the original, but for the first 80% of this book, I was quite impressed that this lived up to the perfection that was Chasing The Boogeyman. The last 20%, however, beats the original in my eye. Packing the emotion, suspense, fear, and love in this book makes this the Empire Strikes Back of this series, or the rare occasion where the sequel beats the original.
This author deserves the same level of love and adoration in the public eye as his friend, Stephen King.