The Chalk Man by C.J. Tudor: A Review

"... despite the best efforts of all the detective's and all the town's men, her head was never found, and the girl in the woods was never put together again."

Eddie and his friends use chalk drawings in different colors to communicate with one another.  One of their chalk pictures will signal that they should all meet in the park while another will lead the others to the woods.  One day, the boys follow their chalk drawings to the body of a young woman that has been murdered.  When the boys grow up and drift apart, they are all drawn back together when they begin to receive creepy chalk drawings again. They begin to wonder if the person accused of the crime was really the person who killed the girl.

The ending to this book shocked me.  I had no idea what really happened until the very last chapter.  There was so much suspense that I felt myself reading another page and another until I finished the book and found out the truth.  I frequently read books that are suspenseful and some that are creepy but rarely do I find one that is truly scary.  This book is truly scary.  Tudor is wonderfully descriptive in her writing, which added to the frightful scenes.  Some of the scenes will be able to cause nightmares!  The characters are vague in such a way that the reader kind of suspects everyone.  There are enough twists and turns to keep one interested but not too many that the book does not make any sense, either.  I loved this book and think that anyone that enjoys thrillers or horror novels will, too.    

Reviews of books like this one:
Everything You Want Me To Be by Mindy Mejia
Every Last Lie by Mary Kubica
The Breakdown by B.A. Paris

My rating:
★★★★★

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