Morbid Book Club: Killing The Boogeyman by Richard Chizmar

Ash Kelley (0:00)

Hey, Weirdos, I'm Ash.

Alaina Urquhart (0:01)

I'm Elena.

Richard Chizmar (0:02)

I'm Rich.

Ash Kelley (0:03)

And this is a very special episode of Morbid.

Alaina Urquhart (0:20)

It is, we have a special guest, Richard Chizmar, welcome to the show.

Richard Chizmar (0:24)

Hello, thanks for having me.

Alaina Urquhart (0:26)

Thank you for coming. We've just been hanging and chatting for a little while.

SPEAKER_4 (0:29)

Already great vibes to start off.

Alaina Urquhart (0:31)

The vibes are immaculate here.

Richard Chizmar (0:33)

I feel like I've known you guys for a long time already. Yeah, we're homies.

Alaina Urquhart (0:35)

And I feel like we've been trading arcs back and forth for a little while. I feel like, so we're getting to know each other here. And you have a new book in the series, the Boogeyman series, Killing The Boogeyman. It's coming out October 6th.

I've got to read this ahead of time. And I feel very lucky. I'm jealous.

Richard Chizmar (0:53)

I love this series so much.

Ash Kelley (0:54)

I'm gonna steal your arc.

Richard Chizmar (0:55)

I love stealing your arcs.

Alaina Urquhart (0:56)

You can steal the arc.

Richard Chizmar (0:58)

Thank you.

Alaina Urquhart (0:59)

It's awesome. And it's such a good conclusion to the series.

Richard Chizmar (1:02)

It's kind of crazy.

Alaina Urquhart (1:03)

I know.

Richard Chizmar (1:04)

Seeing them all right here.

Ash Kelley (1:05)

It must be to see them all lined up, right?

Richard Chizmar (1:07)

Yeah. Yeah. Especially because there was never supposed to be a second book. Oh, really? No, never.

Alaina Urquhart (1:11)

Oh, really?

Richard Chizmar (1:12)

Nope.

Alaina Urquhart (1:13)

This was just supposed to stop at the first one?

Richard Chizmar (1:15)

Yeah. I would have been sad. Writing about myself for one book was enough. Yeah. And I actually remember telling my editor and my agent, I'm like, that's it.

SPEAKER_4 (1:23)

That's it. That's all I got.

Richard Chizmar (1:25)

And I'll be honest, even though the first one was like a surprise hit, no one was like banging down my door saying, we need a second one. We need a second one. And then I was mowing the lawn one day as crazy as that sounds.

And like in a five minute span, I had the idea for the entire first chapter of Becoming The Boogeyman, which ends with a with a and I never say this about my work because I envy those writers who are like, I can't wait to read my next book. It's great. Oh, yeah. I'm always like, well, I'm like, I hope you like it. If you decide you hate it, I hope you don't figure that out until you spent the $29 on it.

SPEAKER_4 (1:57)

It does have that in common.

Richard Chizmar (1:59)

So I get my royalty.

Yeah, just for the first time, I just knew that chapter was good. And it ended on that twist that connected so strongly to the first book. So I remember thinking, if anyone can read that first chapter and not, you know, if they're standing in the store reading it and they read it and they can't, they don't take it up to the register, I'll be shocked. Yeah, so, you know, it just fit that neatly. So I was like, okay, I have to write it. And then just through discussions with my editor, he, you know, he's like, yeah, it's got to be a trilogy. Yeah, he's always had to be a trilogy. Nice. You got to.

Alaina Urquhart (2:31)

You got to.

Richard Chizmar (2:32)

Yeah.

Alaina Urquhart (2:32)

I loved it. That first chapter immediately hooked me. And just the idea of chasing the boogeyman got me right away because I picked it up in the fiction section. But as I'm reading it, like looking through it, I was like, is this real? Like this feels real. And the more I read it, the more I was like, you made that feel so real. That's several times. I knew, again, I got it in the fiction section.

I knew it was not real. But several times I was like, is this real?

Ash Kelley (3:00)

Like I was like, is any part of this real?

Alaina Urquhart (3:02)

Because you nailed the true crime book vibes for that.

Richard Chizmar (3:06)

I love true crime. Yeah. So that was the thing. It's like, you know, I've always thought, you know, if there was a local case and it was the right thing, and I felt like I could add something to the stories, and, you know, in a dignified way, and honor the victims and the survivors, you know, maybe I'd do it because I actually kind of enjoy research.