Richard T. Chizmar Books In Order

Publication Order of Boogeyman Books

Publication Order of The Button Box Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas

Publication Order of Collections

Publication Order of Dark Screams Anthology Books

Publication Order of Night Visions Books

Publication Order of The Best of Cemetery Dance Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Richard Chizmar is an American USA Today, New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Publishers Weekly, and Amazon bestselling author of science fiction, horror, and fantasy books. He co-authored Gwendy’s Button Box, a bestselling novella with Stephen King. Richard has edited more than 35 anthologies, his short fiction stories appeared in dozens of publications.

The author has won two awards, including the HWA’s Board of Trustees Award and International Horror Guild Awards.
Additionally, Richard Chizmar has collaborated in writing teleplays and screenplays for Sony Screen Gems, United Artists, NBC, Showtime, Lions Gate, and other companies. He has adapted bestselling books by other authors into television shows/movies. His books have been translated into more than 15 languages across the globe. He has appeared in several conferences as a guest speaker, writing instructor, guest of honor, and panelist.

Gwendy’s Button Box
Gwendy is a twelve-year-old, broad, outcast at her school. At the top of some stairs in an elevated park in Castle Rock, a strange man offers him a peculiar object in a dark suit. A small box of buttons with two tiny levers. A magic box that occasionally grants tiny gifts, but at a high cost. Pressing the various buttons on the box has serious consequences, and protecting the box is a huge responsibility.

What if someone steals the box? What if a button is accidentally pressed? And if someone presses the fearsome black button.
It’s to be noted that Gwendy’s Button Box is a collaboration between Stephen King and Richard Chizmar that revisits the strange old town of Castle Rock.
The narrative revolves around the childhood Gwendy spends protecting the mahogany box. She discovers both its positives and negatives as she watches history unfold, worrying about the boxes’ effect on the world at large and her friends and family.

The story moves quickly through a decade-long custodian of the world’s most dangerous box. Gwendy’s growth from adolescence to young adulthood is nicely done and provides a firm foundation for the tale’s universal concerns, for example, the current human capability of self-destruction.

Given the setting and the tone of this story, it would be pretty tempting to regard this story as just another Stephen King narrative. It’s a fantastic collaboration with a bestselling author with a similar storytelling style as Stephen King, including idiomatic prose style and uniquely crafted characters.
The characterization is fantastic, and Gwendy is a heroine you will easily root with from the first page to the last. We watch her grow into a charming young woman. We also watch her get into fights with friends, study for school, become a track star, grief, go on dates and eventually fall in love, but the box never leaves her mind.

The entire narrative is quite entertaining, and even though Stephen King did co-author this novel with Richard Chizmar, the story itself doesn’t have much horror scenes as you’d expect in a typical King style. However, this doesn’t mean that there aren’t some nice horror scenes- there’s horror but not on every page.

Chasing the Boogeyman
This is a metafictional retell of the events that took place in 1988. We are transported back in time to the summer of 1988 when Richard Chizmar returns home after finishing college. Even though Richard is not sure about the direction of his life, there are certain things he’s sure about his life.

One, he knows that he’ll get married to Kara, and secondly, he wants to become an author of horror and crime fiction books. While his fiancée finishes school, Richard begins to prepare for his soon happen wed while at the same time trying to start off his literary magazine.

Days before his arrival, a young girl is brutally murdered. But when her body is discovered in the nearby woods the following day after his arrival, Richard’s perception of the young town where he grew up changes forever. The idea that a person he known since childhood was murdered just a few blocks is always like a nightmare.

Over the next few months, four more girls are murdered similarly, their ears cut off, and their bodies posed. This sends clues to the authorities that a serial killer was on the loose, and once a tiny peaceful community is soon saturated with suspicion and paranoia.

His curiosity and interest in true crime send Richard into an investigative mode as he starts asking questions to make sense of the events in his hometown.
But not even Richard Chizmar feels safe. Someone keeps phoning his parents home and hanging up. When Richard and his friend Jimmy encounter a man wearing a white mask while exploring a haunted house, the reality of a serial killer becomes a reality.

Richard Chizmar’s book Chasing the Boogeyman gives the readers a glimpse into a specifc time and place and shows us how the small town of Edgewood lost its innocence. It’s a memoir of the author’s coming-of-age story relating to growing up in a small working-class town in America.

The author pays homage to the simpler life when children would play on the streets and be adventurous without any fears of live.
Like any other true crime novel ever written, Chasing the Boogeyman also includes the pictures of the crime scenes, the evidence the cops collected, and the profiles of prime suspects, all of which add realism to the story.

As you read through this beautifully crafted story, such additions to the story could trigger your own personal questions. The authenticity of the author’s retelling makes the reader’s commitment to the truth smooth, but it also prepares you for a heart-wrenching finale. Combine all these aspects with a sharp sense of dread and a dark undercurrent, and as a reader, you’re left with an outstanding blend of horror, true crime, and memoir.

If you’re looking for a new and real story, then Chasing the Boogeyman chilling originality and the slow-burning suspenseful narration is an excellent recommendation that will keep you at the edge of your seat to the last page.