Pages: 340
Published: 1st January 2018
Genre: Horror
Content warnings: Gore, injury detail, references to sexual abuse
In 1986, Eddie and his friends are just kids on the verge of adolescence. They spend their days biking around their sleepy English village and looking for any taste of excitement they can get. The chalk men are their secret code: little chalk stick figures they leave for one another as messages only they can understand. But then a mysterious chalk man leads them right to a dismembered body, and nothing is ever the same.
In 2016, Eddie is fully grown, and thinks he’s put his past behind him. But then he gets a letter in the mail, containing a single chalk stick figure. When it turns out that his friends got the same message, they think it could be a prank . . . until one of them turns up dead.
That’s when Eddie realizes that saving himself means finally figuring out what really happened all those years ago.
This is a dark story of mystery and misadventure, and it is not one for the faint of heart. It has an atmosphere of deepest foreboding across two timelines, both of which contain scares and a lurking sense of danger, conveyed through the eyes of an unreliable narrator who frequently skirts the intriguing boundary between innocent and disturbed.
In fiction, some of the scariest ideas are based on children’s games that are turned into something sinister, and this book provides us with a particularly innovative example. The colourful chalk men that Eddie and his group of friends use to communicate with each other as teenagers are a very clever idea, and when you find this concept turned against them into a twisted mark of murder, it leaves a very terrifying image indeed.
The fear for Eddie when this eerie past resurfaces in the present is palpable, and the tense scenes involving his shady former teacher and the girl he witnesses suffering a serious injury at the fair gain extra meaning, escalating the dark tone that is present throughout. While the 1986 timeline does drag just a little bit at times, there are certain sections in the plot – such as these – that really have you hanging on to every word.
Eddie is an interesting character who seems harmless on occasion but also unsurprisingly comes across as damaged by his experiences, nowhere more so than in a bombshell ending that you will not forget any time soon, emphasising that this book falls very much into the horror category. This character development is good though, as also shown by how Eddie’s friends are in the present and the way he has become estranged from them.
The setting itself is rather haunting; a town that almost feels lost in time but equally, is brought to life in a characterful way. There are the more secluded areas such as the river and the woodland where dead bodies are found, while even in more traditionally harmonious places such as the fair and the local church, there is conflict. The scene where Eddie visits Nicky’s father years after one of these incidents takes place is suitably chilling.
Overall, if you are one who is immune to or even revels in the gory details, then look no further. The author gives us what is undoubtedly an uncomfortable read, but also a very well executed one as she crafts a great story full of depth with a main character whose voice is thought-provoking. While a little slow paced here and there, it leaves a long-lasting impression.
Originally from Salisbury, C.J. Tudor moved to Nottingham as a child as has lived there ever since, taking on a variety of jobs before becoming an author. These included a stint as a television presenter, fronting a chat show called Moviewatch where she interviewed a number of celebrity guests.
The Chalk Man was her debut novel, released at the start of 2018. It certainly made an impact, becoming a bestseller and although an adaptation was announced in 2020, it has never materialised. However, the book established Tudor as a leading horror thriller author, and she has gone on to publish five more, including The Burning Girls and The Other People.
An impressive book with powerful themes, and although it did not grab me the whole way through, it was darkly arresting.
My rating: ⭐⭐⭐.5
