Number 22 - The Troop - Nick Cutter

 

I'm a bit late to the party on this one.  I've been hearing great things for several months on various horror pages online. And, in this case it appears everything I've heard is true.

A troop of scouts are on a weekend camping trip on a small island. On the first night, they have a visitor.  This visitor is sick and horribly contagious.

it's not any normal sickness either. it's vile and disgusting and pretty much sets a benchmark for what body horror should be.  To give detail on the specifics of the illness risks going into spoiler territory. but trust me it's like nothing I've read before and Cronenburg would be proud of some of the imagery going on in this book.

The boat that's supposed to pick them up never arrives, leaving them stuck with the disease and each other. Cabin fever turns out to be as dangerous as the infection threatening their lives.

This book hurt me, in all the right ways that good horror is supposed to.  It's told in alternating segments, mostly set on the island, but newspaper reports, and extracts from court and military hearings which explain exactly what's going on to the reader, letting us know exactly how far up that creek without a paddle the troop are. The final chapter is a huge gut punch with massive emotional impact.

It's well written with engaging characters, who are fleshed out nicely through a solid use of flashbacks. The tension is unbearable for most of the book. It's gory and disgusting in places but it never feels superfluous.  It's an integral part of this story, and not just cheap shock tactics. A strong stomach is necessary. 

I did find myself wondering why they didn't just make some oars and row the small outboard off the island, but that's a minor complaint.  This is a bunch of increasingly dysfunctional teenagers... is a plan like that going to occur to them as easily as it did to me sitting in my comfy chair reading this?

The only other niggle I have is the relatively early revelation of the number of survivors in one of the report segments. This turned the latter section of the book into an exercise in guessing who dies next, which has its own merits, but might have been more effective if we didn't know the exact number.

I will definitely be reading more by Nick Cutter (and maybe looking up his writing under his real name too).  He is without doubt, the most exciting new author I've found in the genre since Josh Malerman.