The Chalk Man by C. J. Tudor was quite the hype on the social media due to its intriguing blurb and an extremely thrilling cover.

“What shapes us is not always our achievements but our omissions. Not lies; simply the truths we don’t tell.”

As the name suggests, The Chalk Man is the man one would see at any place that has something happening. It can be something as simple as an attack/fight or murder. The chalk man draws his characters as stick men and directs the audience to the scene of the crime.

A mystery that started in 1986 when 12-year-old Eddie met My Halloran- who taught Eddie and his friends to use chalk drawings to communicate and sent secret messages to each other. But it wasn’t really all fun, after a series of incidents happened which indicated the presence of The Chalk Man.

The Chalk Man is a master mystery, which joins a lot of small events and the secrets behind it. The plot is driven by revenge and facts that will increase your curiosity and sometimes leave them unanswered. When these events repeat itself again in 2016, Eddie decides to find the mystery and put it to rest once and for all.

“We think we want answers. But what we really want are the right answers. Human nature. We ask questions that we hope will give us the truth we want to hear. The problem is, you can’t choose your truths. Truth has a habit of simply being the truth. The only real choice you have is whether to believe it or not.”

It was extremely difficult to connect with the characters because each of them had their own vendetta and though the author tried to write happy times, it sounded forced. Because happy time doesn’t leave a string of unexplained corpses. The central mystery, the death of the Waltzer girl has been approached beautifully and runs a full circle. The other mysteries, not so much. The author ends each chapter in a cliffhanger, most of which feels forced and has no connection to the central plot whatsoever.

The Chalk Man is a mystery with characters full of vengeance and hatred. The plot can get really serious at times, and one keeps guessing about what happens next. But it left a bad feeling in my mouth.

From reading the blurb on this book, I was really excited by it. Plus with recommendations coming from Stephen King himself, what more could you want?

Needless to say it didn't disappoint and I thoroughly enjoyed it

A childhood game went wrong and the repercussions start coming through in the present day. I really enjoyed the characters and how they were developed, but the plot didn't hang together for me.

Anyone who’s seen the hype around this book will know it’s being compared to the work of Stephen King. If I recall correctly, even the great man himself compared it to his own work on Twitter. Point is, it will be the most unoriginal comparison I can make, if I say The Chalk Man is comparable to something that Stephen King might write. Well, apologies, but I’m gonna, for the comparison is apt.

CJ Tudor has written a coming of age story that can easily stand aside the master’s work. In Anderbury, we have a small market town in England, comparable with those King conjures in Maine. In Eddie, Fat Gav, Metal Mickey, Hoppo and Nicky, we have child protagonists the like of which King populates his novels, such as IT. And in the chalk man drawings that sinisterly litter the narrative we have the kind of fiendish motif he might have conjured.

Unlike King’s writing this is a crime novel, rather than horror, but like IT we have child protagonists trying to solve the mystery and plagued by evil. It’s not a straightforward crime novel, this is no police procedural, psychological thriller or serial killer tale. Rather it is both a coming of age story – the narrative is split between alternating chapters set in 1986 when the protagonists are ten, and the present day when they are adults – and chiller/thriller, if that makes sense. Both narrative strands work well, though those chapters set in 1986 are by far the best, the author perfectly encapsulating a child’s eye view and managing to conjure up how it felt to grow up in the 80’s.

What’s the central crime the plot revolves around? I really don’t want to say - albeit the book’s description gives that away, telling the reader that the children find a body. In many ways however, this misses the point. A plethora of crimes, both hinted at and explicit, occur in this story; there are multiple characters who may or may not be involved. I want to resist divulging spoilers because this is a MUST read, a really enjoyable experience; there are twists galore and a really eerie sense of foreboding that seeps from each and every page.

Read this novel. You really won’t regret it.

5 out of 5 stars

C.J. Tudor's debut has already received praise by Stephen King, so really, that's all the recommendation you need. Still it's easy to see why.
With shades of IT and Stand By Me, The Chalk Man is a stunning murder mystery and coming of age story that could have easily have been penned by the horror master himself.
Set across 30 years, it follows a boy/man's childhood experience with a new teacher, known as the mysterious Chalk Man, and a series of events that culminate with an unsolved murder.
Tudor has created a real page turner that's near impossible to put down, one full of great characters and small town secrets.
Do yourself a favour. Grab a copy and clear your schedule. You won't be disappointed.

When your debut book gets recommended by Stephen King of all people, it sets expectations high but this assured thriller meets them and then some. It’s 1986 and Eddie and his friends, Fat Gav, Hoppo, Metal Mickey and Nicky are inseparable in the way children who spend their lives outside are. Then a freak fairground accident sets off a chain of events which introduces Eddie to The Chalk Man, Mr Halloran, and ends in the tragic discovery of a dismembered body. Cut to the present day and Ed, as he now prefers to be known, is still haunted by the events of that summer with several questions still unanswered.

This is a smartly written, accomplished crime thriller. There’s a lot to unpick in amongst the story. The complicated relationships between Eddie and his reverberates into adulthood and there’s many stark realisations as Ed looks back at his childhood through adult eyes. There’s a grim disappointment underlying in Ed’s life as he rattles around his parent’s old house with only his lodger for company and you get the feeling that as complicated as his childhood was, those summers were the happiest of his life. The two narrative voices of the past and the present are both distinct from each other despite being the same character and the time jump device is used very effectively, keeping the story rattling along at quite a pace. The last 50 pages are particularly hectic with twists galore is the story hurtles towards its end. A couple of small seeds planted early in the book come to fruition nicely towards the end. The characters of the kids are really well written. I worried slightly at a character named ‘Fat Gav’ but they all had their own personalities and voices.

A brilliantly written book with much to enjoy for crime fiction fans. The hype is worth believing this time.

I received a ARC from NetGalley in exchange for a fair review.

I was really looking forward to reading this book as it sounded so good and there was so much hype about it but I just didnt enjoy it and it was so slow. I wasnt interested in any of the characters and I unfortunetly did not finish this book.

When I first read the blurb about this book it reminded me of many of the 'coming of age/body in the woods' stories, but something drew me to it anyway- maybe the stunningly simple but effective cover.

Told by Ed, who with his mates Fat Gav, Metal Micky, Hoppo and Nicky hang around together through the Summer Holidays of 1986. They leave chalk messages of stick men for each other until one day they follow a message none of them admitted to making and make a horrific discovery.

The story switches back & forth between Ed's youth to adulthood. In 2016 he is still living in the same town, a teacher at the local school. When he and his old friends receive letters containing a chalk drawing and then one of them is found dead he realises his life might depend on finding out what really happened all those years ago.

This one kept me reading far into the night as I struggled to work out what the answer was- needless to say I didn't! A brilliant debut novel- can't wait to see what the next book is like! Thanks to Netgalley & the publisher for letting me read & review this book.

Started off with a lot of promise but feel like it fizzled out. Good premise but failed to deliver. Readable but nothing special.

This is one of those books that’s been getting a lot of attention in the bookish world, so of course, I wanted to see what all the fuss was about! While it only took me a couple of sessions to get through the whole thing, I wasn’t that thrilled by it. The hype wasn’t worth it for me.

I immediately knew this novel wasn’t going to be a 5 star read because I didn’t like the way it was written from page 1. It’s one of those novels that’s told in flashbacks, but rather than transporting us back in time to live the events as they happened, we were told it as though we were being read a story. I feel like this way of writing really makes you take a step back from the events and you don’t get the chance to experience them along with the characters. So anything that’s meant to be tense or exciting didn’t feel that way for me.

As for characters, I honestly didn’t have an opinion on any of them. You would have thought that our main character / narrator Eddie would have left some kind of impression on me, but he didn’t. I genuinely have nothing to say about him… he was unforgettable. The only thing I can think to mention is that his relationship with his housemate Chloe seriously cringy.

I didn’t mind the story in this one, but the synopsis had me ready for something so much more exciting and sinister. It kept me interested for the most part, but I wasn’t enthralled. I had the ‘baddie’ sussed in a matter of chapters, so from there, all I was trying to work out was their motive. It was pretty good at keeping you on your toes in that sense.

Some books try so hard to be exciting and this is one of them. It seemed to me, that each chapter had new drama in it. Less is sometimes more! Don’t forget that! We don’t need drama, after drama, after drama to keep us entertained. It got tedious and took any realism away from the story.

In the end, this novel was extremely underwhelming for me. I didn’t find it exciting and I didn’t think the story was particularly unique. I think this would be a good novel for non-mystery readers, but I’ve just read too many similar stories.

The Chalk Man was one of my most anticipated releases of 2018. Having it approved on Netgalley had me reading it at once and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It is a thriller and is brilliant. After reading a series of bad thrillers, this came as a welcome respite.

Summary:

I really liked the premise of this book. A group of friends uses chalk figures as secret codes to communicate. Later a series of these chalk figures lead them to a severed dead body whose head is missing. When the most likely suspect is found dead in his home, the town goes back to its perpetual state of sleep hoping that all has ended. However, 30 years later, the group receives letters with a chalk man drawn on them. Ed has his own theory of how it all happened. He wants to find the real perpetrator but he has some secrets of his own, kept safe in a box under the floorboards.

What I liked about this book:

This is a true on-the-edge-of-your-seat thriller. Even though the descriptions are discomforting at so many levels, the suspense urges you to keep reading. The unsettling parts form an inseparable part of the story. The writing pattern of shifting timelines and connecting the events is superb.

It does not disappoint since it does not have a cliched ending.It is unexpected and chilling. A little less exciting in how it is written but thank goodness, it is not yet another novel with a schizophrenic murderer.

Interspersed with the gory details are some bitter truths about life. These make the readers question a lot of their own actions.

In short, I enjoyed reading it through and through. There are some loose ends and a few questions unanswered but I have decided to look at them as the author’s way of leaving it to the reader’s imagination. There are a few question threads going on, on the book’s Goodreads page if you want to put in your theory as well.

Recommendations:

I would recommend it to people who read thrillers with a cautionary warning of some graphic and uncomfortable content.

Thank you Penguin Books UK and Netgalley for providing me a review copy. All views are my own.

Right from the first few pages it was such an intriguing story, I was compelled to continue reading to find out what happened to ‘the gang’ in their childhood and who/what was coming back to haunt them.

Previous to picking up The Chalk Man, I had been in a complete reading slump for a couple of months, I was really struggling to find something that gripped my attention and kept me engaged all the way through. However this wonderful novel brought me right out of that state of mind!

I absolutely loved how C J Tudor shaped the characters, Eddie was a wonderful protagonist and it was so interesting to read his prospective of childhood and then 30 years later in adulthood. Tudor made an exquisite job of writing in the mind of a 12 year old, including how he perceived the world and the people around him, then flitting to Eddie’s much older adult self, couldn’t have been an easy task!

This was a highly anticipated read for me and I’m so pleased I wasn’t deflated! Super excited to read more by this clever author!

A very creepy debut which overall I enjoyed. The story links 2 murders one from 1986 & one in the present that comes back to haunt a group of friends.The Chalk Man was a gripping read & I look forward to reading more from this author

A quick and well-written mystery. I tend to gravitate to mysteries with females characters, but I very much enjoyed The Chalk Man which has four boys/men as the protagonists. I especially liked Eddie, who came across as a sincere, honest and quite normal person. The two story lines, alternating between 1986 and 2016, worked very well. I find that in a lot of books this is not the case, and I end up wishing that I could skip the one story. I really liked that the author included the parents and other smaller characters backstories. My only issue with the book was the ending - once again I thought there were too many twists and reveals, especially the last one. I will be watching out for this debut authors next book, as the writing really drew me in. Perfect holiday/weekend reading.

Brilliantly written and with interesting characters. I would highly recommend the book. Personally I didn’t think the solution lived up to the overall book hence why I’ve given it a 4 star.

This book was recommended by a few other bloggers and friends so I was keen to read it. It was set in the eighties so I loved all the references to eighties things. The friendship within the gang was interesting to read and the author pitched it just right. I really enjoyed reading about the gangs adventures when they weren't finding dead bodies.
I suspected the main character was hiding something from the beginning. The way the parts of the body were found was very well thought out.
It was unusual in the way that despite being a thriller it moved quite slowly, but still kept the reader hooked.

It's always great to have an opening that will instantly grab you and The Chalk Man is definitely one of these books. I really wasn't expecting the events at the start of this book at all and I loved that I ended up being surprised especially as I didn't know where the story would go next. Now after this brilliant start I did wonder if the story would dip a little and lose some of the tension but this was not the case. The plot moved smoothly and even though it wasn't necessarily always fast paced there was something about this story that completely wrapped me up in the characters lives and I was so invested in discovering the truth.

I don't really want to go into too much detail regarding the plot but the story does alternate between two timelines - 1986 and 2016. I know that in some instances this can come across as confusing however in the case of The Chalk Man it just ends up complimenting the story so well. Looking back after finishing the book I couldn't make my mind up as to which time period I preferred and I think this is definitely down to the smooth transitions from one time to another. Secrets and truths are revealed slowly but surely in a way that made me not want to put this book down. I enjoyed each time period equally as I got to know the characters not only in 2016 but also their younger selves feeling like I was right there with them.

I loved all of the twisty intense turns that this mystery took me on, the whole book easily grabbed hold of me and refused to let go. The Chalk Man is such an intriguing story and one that has plenty of shocks and surprises waiting to jump out of the pages at you. There was also a wonderful atmospheric and almost chilling aspect to the story that I loved.

A wonderfully dark and compelling read!

Five stars from me!

With thanks to Jenny at Michael Joesph Books and Netgalley for my copy. This is my honest and unbiased opinion.

Excellent debut novel by C J Tudor. Lots of hype on this one but well placed. A split time narrative taking in the story of a group of kids in the eighties and bringing the group up to date in 2016 when previous events come back to haunt them. The events and actions are blended into a well crafted, fast moving story which keeps the tension in place and builds on the reveals that occur. Good characterisations and a pleasing style to the writing. An author to follow.

The Chalk Man is one of those books. You know, you keep seeing them everywhere, everybody is raving about them, there's a lot of hype surrounding them. Mostly, that hype is well-deserved and The Chalk Man is firmly in that category. I absolutely loved it.

The story is very much Eddie's. He's 12 in 1986 and 42 in 2016 and the story is told in alternate chapters set in each different time. Something about the 80s sections seemed so 80s-ish without it being signposted in a really obvious way. It's probably because I was almost the same age as Eddie and his friends in 1986 so it was easy to put myself there.

1986 is the year that one of his friends receives a load of chalk for his birthday and they start using it to leave each other messages. But the innocence of this soon gets lost amongst some sinister events that take place. In 2016, Eddie is looking back on past events, his memories jogged by the reappearance of an old friend.

This is a perfectly plotted story. Going backwards and forwards between the two years provides the ideal device for cliffhangers, leaving me desperate to find out what happened next. The lives of the children come across so well, the long summers riding around on a bike, eating penny sweets, hanging out with friends.

This book didn't exactly scare me, but it certainly invaded my dreams and I had some very odd night-time experiences. It has eerie bits, segments in the woods, the idea of being watched. The scary part about it is what the mind is capable of conjuring up.

This is such a brilliantly written book, an addictive read. I loved it and can't wait to see what this debut author comes up with next.

Childhood games, sinister chalk figures, a tragic accident and a gruesome murder. Reminiscent of The Body, this is a dark, atmospheric small-town crime novel with an exceptionally creepy premise and well-drawn characters.