TITLE: The Troop
AUTHOR: Nick Cutter
PUBLISHER: Pocket Books
PUBLICATION DATE: July 22, 2014
FORMAT: Mass Market Paperback
LENGTH: 520 pages
LENGTH: 520 pages
GENRE: Horror
ISBN: 9781476717722
Once a year, scoutmaster Tim Riggs leads a troop of boys into the Canadian wilderness for a three-day camping trip—a tradition as comforting and reliable as a good ghost story and a roaring bonfire. But when an unexpected intruder—shockingly thin, disturbingly pale, and voraciously hungry—stumbles upon their campsite, Tim and the boys are exposed to something far more frightening than any tale of terror. The human carrier of a bioengineered nightmare. An inexplicable horror that spreads faster than fear. A harrowing struggle for survival that will pit the troop against the elements, the infected...and one another.
I think I just found a new horror author to love!
The story starts off with a news article about an emaciated man nicknamed “Starvin’ Marvin,” who stole a waitress’ truck. What made the man so memorable was his voracious appetite. The waitress said that he ate the diner out of eggs! Marvin drives to the coast and steals a boat to cross the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. He just wants to get away, and he’s heading towards Falstaff Island which is uninhabited by humans. Marvin doesn’t realize that Scoutmaster Tim is already on the island with his troop of 14-year-old boy scouts for their annual weekend trip. The troop has been together since the boys were five years old, so they are a tight-knit group...or so they seem. Marvin’s presence will test their loyalty to each other.
Wow, I just loved this book! Cutter made me squirm (there are a lot of ewwww moments), and I really liked the diabolical aspect of the story where the characters turned on each other. I really enjoyed how the author added dimension to the tale through the addition of newspaper articles and interviews to shed light on what is going on.
I already own Cutter’s The Deep, and I can’t wait to read it!
MY RATING:
This book qualifies as: