Rating: 5/5

For Fans Of: Tana French, Christina Henry, dark fantasy and crime novels

Trigger Warnings: Murder (both of children and adults), violence, gun violence, death of family members, abandonment, missing persons, mental illness, divorce, bullying

I first discovered Cynthia Pelayo’s work with her collection Loteria, which features dark fantasy short stories and flash fiction based on the Mexican game with the same name. I own a copy of the game and absolutely love the illustrations associated with it. Sometimes for fun I’ll pull Loteria cards and then flip through Pelayo’s book to read her entry on that specific card. It’s a wonderful way to go through that collection. Pelayo is a well established name in horror and crime writing, especially for her poetry. Her most recent poetry collection, Into the Forest and all the Way Through, honors the life and stories of over one hundred missing or murdered women.

When I heard that Pelayo had a novel coming out this year, I rushed to Netgalley with the hopes it would be available. It was. I smashed the download button so hard. Children of Chicago is dark, gut-wrenching, emotional, and relatable. After having heard Pelayo talk on several panels and reading her past work, I know the deep admiration and affection she has for Chicago and its Latinx populations, having grown up there herself. It is clear that Children of Chicago is another tribute to this world she holds so close.

Detective Lauren Medina has dealt with loss her entire life, but now that her father has passed away, her divorce is finalizing, and her partner on the force is retiring, things seem to be coming to a head. When teenagers start turning up dead around Medina’s childhood neighborhood in Chicago along side new graffiti announcing the Pied Piper, Medina realizes that her painful past is anything but behind her. In fact, the deaths of her sister and stepmother are more closely connected to Medina’s current case than anyone could guess. What appears to be instances of gang violence and children attacking other children might have a deeper, more sinister origination. Something that has been around for centuries, and does not care about the rules of our world. Can Lauren stop the cycle and free the city and herself from terror in this dark modern retelling of an old fairy tale?

Pelayo writes about painful realities with a patina of folklore. I recently did some research on folklore, urban legends, and how we communicate, and the histories and connects between in all are really fascinating. It was incredibly fun to see this melding of urban legend with folklore and fairy tales in Children of Chicago. The book felt a lot like Candyman and Slender Man — Slender Man, in particular — which have both transcended urban legend status and gone on to a sort of mythological standing. The plot is an example of old folklore tropes being communicated through urban legend and interpreted through new technology to cause real harm, much like what happened with the Slender Man killings. But Children of Chicago is much more than that. It’s a look at real violence in real communities and the darkness that stretched across generations, across centuries, that causes it. And it’s about a beautiful, complicated city, which feels a lot like a stand-in for our society at large.

I think most people are familiar with Pelayo as a poet, so Children of Chicago is a bit of a change-up. Her skill as a poet is very apparent in her prose. I enjoyed her style of writing, especially for this dark fairy tale retelling. It had something like an affectation to it, which I felt added necessary atmosphere to the plot and characters. Her characters felt very present on the page. I really enjoyed Pelayo’s mixture of genres, adding a bit of crime, mystery, horror, and dark fantasy. Children of Chicago is dark and can be pretty terrifying at times. I recommend it to fans of authors like Tana French and Christina Henry, shows like The Killing and The Fall, and anyone who likes dark secrets coming home to roost.

Children of Chicago will be out on 02/09/21. Thank you to Netgalley and Agora Books for providing me with a digital ARC.