The Chalk Man is a thriller/mystery novel by C. J. Tudor, first published in 2018. The book started in 1986 in a small village in England. Eddie was a twelve-year-old boy when he and his friends came up with a secret code to communicate with each other by drawing chalk figures. However, one day they noticed that someone else had been using their secret code for other purposes. The latest and most horrifying one was to lead them to a girl's dismembered body. Thirty years later, Eddie thought he had left that tragic story behind until one day he received a single letter containing a drawing of a chalk figure.

Alright, first of all, the story is kinda cliche, isn't it? That's what I thought first. But I think it has some valuable qualities in it. Mixing the classic psychopath-terrorizing-a-small-village storyline with some of those deliciously annoying unreliable protagonist points of view.

Although I get some It vibe from this book (the main characters are some boys and a red-headed girl, the bullies, and the 30-ish-year time skip), I'm glad that it took many different directions from the mentioned Stephen King's book. The book plays around with some common expectations that come with the genre and twists them into interesting and quite refreshing outcomes.

I have some mixed feelings about the story's revelations. They're not particularly bad, but somehow I just know what's coming, at least some part of it. I guessed it's because the author is too diligent in scattering all the clues and forget to keep some of them until the very last words of the revelations. Or maybe the deliveries were just not great. Either way, some of the big revelations just fell flat to me.

Overall, I think this book is worth a read anyway for people that likes mysteries.