Review: Children of Chicago by Cynthia Pelayo

Disclaimer: Thank you to NetGalley and Polis Books for providing me an e-ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Detective Lauren Medina, reeling from the recent death of her father and an impending divorce, is called out to a murder scene of a teenaged girl. Expecting but not finding evidence of gang violence, Medina is stunned to see a piece of graffiti that reads PIED PIPER. Her partner thinks nothing of it, insisting that it is a new tagger trying to get his name out, but it stirs feelings of dread in Medina as that same symbol was seen at the scene of her younger sister's tragic death years before.

As there are cases of kids killing other kids, and more and more sightings of the PIED PIPER graffiti all over Chicago, Lauren is racing to find out how the cases of murdered kids are connected and how the Pied Piper is connected to it all.

This book is Cynthia Pelayo's love letter to her beloved Chicago. It is honest and unflinching, invoking both Walt Disney and Frank L. Baum in contrast to H.H. Holmes and The Chicago Strangler. The way she weaves the history of the city in with the stories of crime gives Chicago itself the feeling of a gritty fairy tale.

The book is gripping and fast paced and there are dark, gory elements that will get your heart pumping. I thoroughly enjoyed this dark, gripping story and didn't want it to end. 

5/5 Stars

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