This mystery/true(ish) crime story is a really interesting work of metafiction. The story takes place in the late 1980s with Richard Chizmar returning to his hometown for a few months before his upcoming marriage. Days before his arrival, the first of a string of teenage girls are abducted and murdered - throwing the town into a panic of alarm system and handgun purchases. Richard, working on developing a blossoming horror writing career, is intrigued with the murders and finds himself being drawn into the investigation especially because someone keeps calling him but never says anything on the phone. Richard ends up writing an account of the months he spent back home during the murders, not aware that those events would continue to follow him for decades to come.
The structure and metafiction aspect of this book was incredible. Given my love of police procedurals and crime documentaries, one might think that I would be one of those people obsessed with true crime everything. I've tried a couple true crime books, but I've always found them very dry and almost clinical to read (and all of them had reviews that said the prose was very readable). Turns out, this work of fiction is exactly how I'd like my true crime to read. I know there are people who don't like true crime because it can be extremely exploitative of the victims so if that is anyone's concern, I'd just like to confirm the murders in this book are 100% fictional. Chizmar confirms in the author's note at the end of this book that the murders are fictional (there is mention of a real string of break-ins by someone called the "Phantom Fondler" which were real). Chizmar also states that the stories from his childhood and memories of his time at home during that summer were real which I thought really came through in the story. There is an incredible amount of emotion and nostalgia worked into this story despite the writing style leaning a more toward the typical straight-cut journalism style of most true-crime books. We spend a whole chapter just going through Chizmar's memories of growing up in this small town with his group of friends before they all went off after graduation. I'm a few decades behind Chizmar, but I connected a lot with his descriptions of growing up in a small town (I'm from small town New England). We also get, like many true crime books, a good number of pictures that show places from around town or newspaper clippings of the events being talked about. We get everything from pictures of the field where one body was found to pictures of police press conferences to even pictures of the murder victims in happier times (again, Chizmar explains in the authors note that he hired a production company for these pictures, these are not actual murder victims). My entire reading experience was heightened by these pictures and I'm so glad he chose to include them.
Honestly, the whole reading experience was incredibly immersive. Again, I'm not some huge true-crime lover so I wasn't entirely sure if I would fly through reading this or if would be one of those books where I can only manage a chapter or two at a time. I read the whole thing in one evening and stayed up way past my bedtime to finish. I really enjoyed how the murders kicked off right away and then we backed up a bit to get some history of the town, then went right back into the murders. We're getting little insights into all these people around town by Chizmar which gives just a hint of small town drama that, again, draws the reader deeper into this town. I also really liked how Chizmar wasn't the stereotypical protagonist of a detective or a journalist for this story. He was just a guy living in town that had a good amount of time on his hands and he was intrigued by these crimes happening in this little town. If there was a string of murders in my hometown, I'd be on the phone with my parents every night for any developments. It really felt like Chizmar was more of a collector of information that he turned into a scrapbook rather than an investigative or journalist type of point of view which I think makes the narrative voice more personable for a reader to follow along with. The pictures as I mentioned above also drew me into the story more simply by having an added visual element. It is one thing to read a description of a person but another one altogether to have a picture to put to a name.
I really liked how the killer was revealed. We know from the forward that the killer is caught, the person caught was the last person they would have suspected, and Chizmar interviews them in prison. This, at the beginning, felt like too much information, like it would be too obvious when reading the rest of the story who the murderer was. However, I didn't find that to be the case. Once the writing was on the wall at the 90% mark, I knew who it was, but I think at that point the book is just holding your hand while the case gets laid out so most people will pick up on the killer at that point. It was a little weird reading the ending reveal where Chizmar wasn't directly involved with catching the killer only because most mysteries center around the investigator so obviously they are the ones to figure out the killer. In this case, since Chizmar was basically just a bystander, he carried on with his life while the investigation carried on separately. As the forward mentions, Chizmar does interview the killer in prison and we do get that interview on page in the book so that did help to make the whole story feel more connected. I don't want to give away too much about how the killer is finally caught, but it was nice to see a side of police work that maybe doesn't get as much attention in media as other parts.
I thought the character work was really great, especially since the best thing about small town mysteries is that it is basically all about the characters. Every time a new body would drop, we'd get the rising tension as maybe people weren't as friendly as they were in the past. I think a lot of times with books set in real places (fiction and non-fiction), there's a chance that the characters would almost feel underdeveloped because for the author who lived there with those people, they can see them as fully fleshed out people and that doesn't always translate well to the page. For Chizmar, however, I found the characters to be just the perfect amount of developed. We get a good sense of everyone's characters and then as we see more and more interactions on page, we get more and more information about them. This slow build up makes it so the reader doesn't get overwhelmed in the beginning of the book by a flood of characters or character details. I also really liked the characters that Chizmar interacts with and we find out how that character was back when Chizmar was growing up and how they're different now. Especially when his childhood friend comes in for a visit and they fall back into their old dynamic. I think many people have had a similar experience with being back somewhere or with someone from years prior and just falling into old habits so easily.
In conclusion, this book was fantastic. It isn't the most action packed thriller, isn't the most psychologically twisted serial killer book, but it is a really great small town true crime mystery.
Thanks to NetGalley and Gallery Books for the ARC in exchange for review
Expected publication date is August 17, 2021.
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