The Chalk Man

In 1986, in a small English country town, four boys—Eddie, Gavin, Mickey, and Hoppo—and a girl named Nicky are always together, leaving colored-chalk symbols on the roadside and on one another's outer walls that only the five of them can understand. For them, that summer was supposed to last forever; but chalk figures begin appearing in strange places at strange times, secrets slowly grow among the five children, and a few misunderstandings break apart friends who once told each other everything. All of it is bound up in some way with the death of a beautiful girl. Thirty years later, one of the five—Mickey, now a famous bestselling author—returns to the town and upsets the lives of the others. His aim is to dig up that bizarre girl's death from years ago as material for a new novel; but that very night, he drowns in the river. Eddie, Gavin, and Hoppo then each receive a mysterious letter containing only a stub of chalk and a drawing of a chalk figure. History seems to be repeating itself, and the Chalk Man has appeared again. In the old case of thirty years ago, how many lies of childhood and sins of youth lie buried? Two timelines, 1986 and 2016, gradually reveal the truth. This is the first novel by the British author C.J. Tudor.