Once every year, Scoutmaster Tim Riggs leads a troop of boys into the Canadian wilderness for a weekend camping trip—a tradition as comforting and reliable as a good ghost story around a roaring bonfire. The boys are a tight-knit crew. There’s Kent, one of the most popular kids in school; Ephraim and Max, also well-liked and easygoing; then there’s Newt the nerd, and Shelley the odd duck. For the most part, they all get along and are happy to be there—which makes Scoutmaster Tim’s job a little easier. But for some reason, he can’t shake the feeling that something strange is in the air this year. Something waiting in the darkness. Something wicked…
It comes to them in the night. An unexpected intruder, stumbles upon their campsite like a wild animal. He is shockingly thin, disturbingly pale, and voraciously hungry—a man in unspeakable torment who exposes Tim and the boys to something far more frightening than any ghost story. Within his body is a bioengineered nightmare, a horror that spreads faster than fear. One by one, the boys will do things no person could ever imagine.
And so it begins. An agonizing weekend in the wilderness. A harrowing struggle for survival. No possible escape from the elements, the infected…or one another.
Horror Book Review Blog: The Troop
If I were allowed only three words to describe Nick Cutter’s The Troop, they would be, “Wow, just wow!” The book’s blurb describes The Troop as part Lord of the Flies, part 28 Days Later. I agree with it being similar to Lord of the Flies, but I would even throw in that it’s also part John Carpenter’s The Thing and with some elements of the 2008 screen adaptation of The Ruins sprinkled in, to some degree.
The novel centers around a group of young boys who, with their scoutmaster, head off to the isolated wild when they get an unexpected visit from a stranger who sets forth a series of events that will put them on an ultimate test of wit and survival. For the most part, we follow the story through the eyes of the boys on their chilling quest for survival as they try to make sense of what is happening. It is through their experiences with one another that truths are revealed and masks uncovered. Sure, there is something out there, but is there also danger, inside, from within?
What story of developing young men would be complete without its fill of the seemingly necessary character tropes? There is the tough, yet, unintelligible jock, the jokester, the good-hearted fat kid (his words, not mine), and the kid who has more than a few secrets and yearnings that crave to be exploited. These tropes were not necessarily a bad thing because all of the characters were likable (mostly) and very relatable. There were even a few passages in the novel that were reminiscent of Stephen King’s, The Body (Stand by Me) where the boys’ banters as they made their way through the wilderness made me laugh along with them as if I too were on that trek with them. It was the same sort of talk that I would have with my friends. We get snippets of each character’s past as the story progresses which gives us a better idea of their flaws and shortcomings as human beings at their young age – traits that don’t need a lifetime of development but rather, like real-life, are already developed in their teens.
This was the author’s, Cutter’s, voice that translated so well to paper. One minute I wanted to be there, hanging with the guys and the next I would be cringing and thanking the heavens that I was not there, on the island, with them. And believe me when I say the whole ordeal was an absolute nightmare that I would not wish upon even my worst enemy. Cutter’s writing was, in my opinion, excellent in that it drew me in and made me wince when it was called for. The pages read like a screenplay as I was able to envision, almost to a “T” what Cutter wanted to convey, a true sign of fantastic writing. An adaption of this book onto film would be, without a doubt, a dream job of any proprietor of practical effects. Again, think of John Carpenter’s The Thing.
I recently read Josh Malerman’s Bird Box, which I loved and even had it pegged as my best read of 2018. But, I would have to say that The Troop has taken the top spot of my best, and favorite, read of 2018, thus far. I would have no problems whatsoever giving this one a recommendation to those who are not particularly squeamish, not that the book is a robust and disturbing read in its entirety but, be forewarned, there are more than a few moments in the book that creeped me out, and I don’t scare easily.
I can’t say that there was anything in particular that I didn’t like nor bothered me about the book only that I wish there were more to read. At the book’s conclusion, I was overwhelmingly satisfied and refreshed having read such a fantastic novel. I picked up Nick Cutter’s The Deep when I was halfway through The Troop because I was itching to dive into more of his work. This a high recommendation from me.