Fin looked back down at the paper and then to her hands, fighting the urge to pick up a black crayon and scrawl a picture of the man. In her mind, his arms were reaching out for her. She knew he was waiting for her, somewhere she could taste the earth in the wind, acidic and bitter, where she could hear the creaking of branches, and rustling, rooting and scrabbling of critters among the leaves, and where she could breathe in deeply wild mint and rotting wood. In the shade, of sun-dappled leaves, between the fallen twigs and along the moss, he was there. He was always there.
- page 158
Cynthia Pelayo’s contribution to Why I Love Horror (ed. Becky Speigel Spratford) was touching and dismaying, an essay about the consequences of childhood abuse somewhat mitigated by her love of movies, specifically horror movies, and her identification with the monsters, outcasts like she felt to be. On finishing her essay, I immediately wanted to read her novels.
Chicago detective, Lauren Medina is haunted by events from her childhood: The disappearance of her birth mother, the death of her little sister, Marie, and shortly after, the suicide of Diane, Marie’s mother and Lauren’s stepmother. Marie’s body was found in a pond in Humboldt Park. Teenage Lauren, who had picked her up from school, was found a distance away, dazed and unable to remember what had happened. Near Marie’s body was graffiti proclaiming the “Pied Piper.”
For years Medina’s father, a former Chicago detective, tried to make sense of it all. For years Medina has gone to therapy, gnawing at the problem of her missing memory while expecting signs of the Pied Piper’s return. For years the case that encompassed them both has been public knowledge, and Medina has had to contend with questions, including those from her soon-to-be partner, Van.
Now, Medina’s father has recently died after suffering from dementia, including visions of her dead sister. As she’s coping with the funeral arrangements, Detective Washington, her father’s best friend and former partner, now her partner and mentor for the last year before his retirement, urges her to take time off to finish the arrangements and grieve. He tries to dissuade her from current cases, but a child is found dead near Humboldt Park. And near the child’s body is graffiti by the Pied Piper. A second murder, more graffiti, and this time a copy of Grimm’s Fairy Tales also found at the scene.
Part police procedural, part supernatural horror weaving in a folk tale, this is also a wrenching novel of loss and guilt. Medina is driven to understand the Pied Piper, even as she suspects he has returned to Chicago and may be unstoppable. But what secrets lie in Medina’s lost memories? Does her flickering recall of a library visit bear relevance? What summons the Piper? Can something so long-lived be destroyed?
Pelayo is a fine and careful writer with a knack for incorporating sensory detail (as in the above quotation) and for doling out scenes that move the plot while ratcheting up suspense and delineating character. Her Chicago settings are closely detailed with side helpings of Chicago history, settling the reader into this place that has been home to so much violence and is yet so loved by its inhabitants. If you’re looking for a solid, engaging horror novel, here it is.
© 2026 Randy Money
Hardback | Agora Books
THE CHILDREN OF CHICAGO by Cynthia Pelayo
April 2021 | 304 pages
ISBN: 978-1951709204
