THE TROOP by Nick Cutter. (Gallery Books, February 2014) Hardcover, 358 pages. ISBN # 147617710 / 9781476717715. Sunburst Award Nominee for Adult Fiction (2015), Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Horror (2014), James Herbert Award (2015).
Summary from the Goodreads website . . . . .
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.
My review on the Goodreads website . . . . .
This story got under my skin and wriggled around until it had sufficiently coiled itself around both heart and brain.
If you're squeamish do not read this during a camping trip, hiking a wooded trail, eating a meal, or snacking on anything. You will develop a constant itch and irritation that only closing the book, taking a shower, and switching your attention to anything else will provide temporary relief.
There are multiple themes throughout The Troop, and fortunately Cutter doesn't need to place them in-your-face in order to make you consider them: corporate greed, science and research gone amuck, the cruelty of quarantine and isolation, young lads faced with a nasty survival challenge, coming of age, ill-advised choices, and sacrifice.
The characters may initially seem like cookie-cutter templates but author-Cutter develops them and differentiates them to great effect as the story progresses. All five of the young troopers have to fend for themselves following the absence of their scoutmaster and naturally can't agree on much, dividing their members into smaller groups or totally isolating others.
All of the five are flawed in different ways, their personalities and values shaped by significant and often traumatic events in their past, as the flashbacks interspersed throughout the story reveal.
The Troop reminded me of two other novels, and for favorable reasons: Lord Of The Flies by William Golding, and The Ruins by Scott Smith.
This novel will gross you out, disturb you, and stay with you after the final pages. Don't let that stop you from reading it.
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