By Richard Chizmar

Hodder & Stoughton, out now

Richard Chizmar looks back at his involvement with a serial killer in his home town…

A few years back, I compiled a selection of cases under the title The Serial Killer Files, which took me to some dark places (and indeed the chapter on one particular case I never want to read again). You sense that the research for this fascinating volume by Richard Chizmar may have done the same for him as you read the closing part of this book, because it’s clear that he’s done his homework, both into the methodology and psychology of a serial killer and also the investigation methods – which aren’t the same when he wrote this as they were in the time it’s set, the summer and autumn of 1988.

The book’s described on the flap as a work of “metafiction” which captures its clever blend of authenticity (the neighbourhood and people) and fictional extrapolation (what would happen if there was a serial killer in said neighbourhood?). You really will start to wonder just how much is real when you see the photos that are reproduced between chapters and are drawn in by the way that “Joe Hardy and Nancy Drew” – aka “Chiz” and a journalist friend, Carly Albright – find their lives entangled with those of the killer and his victims.

In the main body of the book, Chizmar skilfully creates the small town vibe that is necessary as a constant reminder of Sherlock Holmes’ dictum about what goes on outside major conurbations – the deeds of hellish cruelty that are the focus of the book. The eventual solution fits what’s been set up (and I had a suspicion about that particular person) and it’s perhaps only in the final portion that Chizmar’s horror roots show strongly.

Verdict: A skilful fusion of true crime and horror. 9/10

Paul Simpson

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