The Chalk Man

Tudor, C. J. The Chalk Man. New York: Crown 2018. Print

First Sentences:

Start at the beginning

The problem was, none of us ever agreed on the exact beginning. Was it when Fat Gav got the bucket of chalks for his birthday? Was it when we started drawing the chalk figures or when they started to appear on their own? Was it the terrible accident? Or when they found the first body? 

Description:

Maybe you are looking for a mystery/suspense novel with a background of youthful adventures and creepiness, full of twists and turns on each page. If so, you will find it all in C. J. Tudor's The Chalk Man.

Narrated over two separate eras, 1986 and 2016, the plot focuses on Eddie and his four twelve-year-old friends living in a small English village. These kids use a secret code of chalk figures drawn on the sidewalk to schedule a rendezvous and other information with each other. But one day Eddie notices a chalk figure outside his house that, when he follows its directions, leads him to a beheaded body in the woods.

Cut to the present when adult Eddie receives a note with no return address or message except a chalk figure drawn on a sheet of paper. He finds his other friends have also received similar chalk figure notes. A prank? Perhaps. But when one of the friends turns up dead, the chalk figure seems much more than a prank.

Turns out there is more than one mystery in this village, more than several suspects in the murder, and more than one pathway leading Eddie and his friends, both in the past and present years, on chilling adventures.

Tudor has an engagingly easy style of writing that makes The Chalk Man a compelling, immensely satisfying mystery. Days and events fly past as Eddie narrates not only his childhood and adult life, but the lives of his closest fellow chalk man friends. Equal parts thriller and character study, the book moves quickly through deep friendships to events to conjectures to action.

A good, solid read for anyone seeking a new mystery with engaging characters and multiple twists and turns along the way to a surprising conclusion. I'm very much looking forward to Tutor's next book and hoping it matches the high quality of The Chalk Man.

Happy reading. 

Fred

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

King, Stephen. The Body.   

The classic best-seller about childhood friends who discover a body in their hometown. Later adapted into a Golden Globe winning movie, Stand By Me.