There has been a couple times where I felt a book was so fresh and a sequel could potentially ruin the uniqueness of the story, only to have the sequel add to said uniqueness and heighten the overall story. Becoming the Boogeyman by Richard Chizmar is just that story. The sequel to Chasing the Boogeyman ended up being just as good if not better than the original with the same fresh storytelling and was utterly surprising.
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…
Like in Chasing the Boogeyman, Chizmar tells a tale that although I knew it was a work of fiction had me so entrenched in the that I found myself forgetting and wanting to look up places, people, and events on the internet to see the actual story this book was pulled from. This ability to craft Becoming the Boogeyman in a way that has you stuck between reality and fiction is something special and will get me every time. I have had the lovely ability to have met Chizmar in person and after reading these stories, you want to ask him questions about what it was like to have the events of Becoming the Boogeyman happen to him in real life, only to remember its all a work of fiction.
Outside the blend of fact and fiction, Chizmar’s love for true-crime and thrilling horror is evident on every page. The events are well thought out and fit perfectly into the story in a way that feels natural and utterly captivating. Sometimes when using a unique storytelling device such as a blend of fact and make believe, the story itself almost feels secondary to this plot device.You may say the first book leaned heavily on this and might not have worked all that well if not for this unique way of writing the book (that’s not what I believe, but can understand if you did). However, it becomes even more of a crutch sometimes in the follow up book. This is not the case with Becoming the Boogeyman as I felt the story alone was wonderfully written.
There is this emotional connection I have to Chizmar and the events of these first two books. The ability to make a sequel in the first place was surprising to me, but now I am here for the third installment in 2026.
Now, if Chasing the Boogeyman proved that Richard Chizmar was onto something, Becoming the Boogeyman proves it was no fluke. This is a sequel that doesn’t just simply continue the first book, it expands on everything that made it so special while also carving a path of its own. Chizmar doesn’t just blur the lines of fact and fiction in Becoming the Boogeyman, he makes you forget there is even a line. Bring on Killing the Boogeyman.
Becoming the Boogeyman is available at bookstores everywhere from Gallery Books. The audiobook, narrated by Chris Andrew Ciulla, is available at Libro.fm!
