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Children of Chicago by Cynthia Pelayo

Agora Books, 2021

ISBN: ISBN-10 : 1951709209

Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition (pre-order: release date March 9, 2021)

The daughter of a Chicago policeman, Detective Lauren Medina has known the terrible trauma and tragedy of her city ever since the unsolved murder of her sister when they were both children. She is also a true believer in the power of the darkest fairytales to infiltrate ordinary lives. When someone begins tagging multiple spots in the city with the name “Pied Piper”, Lauren immediately realizes that the number of dead children is about to increase dramatically. Her evidence is a very old copy of Grimm’s fairytales she read as a child, a missing page from that book, and a magic rhyme that can call the Piper to get rid of any chosen victim.

Cynthia Pelayo is a master of her craft. In Children of Chicago, she creates a strong sense of place with brief descriptions of the city’s landmarks and its violent history. The familiarity of this location in the popular imagination heightens the supernatural effect of the fairytales on past and present sins that are destroying any hope of a better future through or for the community’s children. Within this cityscape, the mysterious Pied Piper, wearing a black suit and hat, appears frequently to a group of children who owe him for the horrible deeds they have requested him to perform. When he wants to, he transforms into a terrifying, bloody monster, hungry to collect his fees in human flesh. Pelayo moves expertly between human events and nightmarish fantasy suggesting that the two are not separate and that their intersection is a demonic one.

Part mystery, part fairytale, part psychological crime thriller, Children of Chicago will make you want to re-read fairytales as you wonder about their origins (based on true stories?) and try to figure out what Detective Medina really knows and how.  Best of all, by the climax of the book, like the Piper’s future victims, you’ll be looking into the shadows with a shiver hoping this scary tale is simply very good horror fiction.

Highly Recommended

Reviewed by Nova Hadley