The Troop

At some point in the last year, I started Nick Cutter's “The Troop” on audiobook and enjoyed the equivalent of the first few chapters enough to move to checking out the physical copy.

From the first chapter, we find out that there's a man on the loose who has an insatiable hunger beyond anything the typical human experiences. We also meet Scoutmaster Tim, and a troop of 5 14 year-old boys who are already on an island near Prince Edward Island in Canada. The ever-dwindling man shows up on the island and things go sideways pretty quickly.

Now, this is all a good premise for a pretty scary tale and I'm a sucker for coming of age stories. However, Nick Cutter just went too far! And that's saying something when the first blurb on the cover is a strong recommendation from Stephen King.

I found it hard to believe that Scoutmaster/Doctor Tim would make so many bad decisions before he was infected. Would you bring a clearly ill and possibly deranged adult male into a cabin where your 5 young charges are staying?

The devolution of Shelley was ludicrous and seemed like an excuse to throw in tons of very disturbing animal abuse (I had to skim these because they were so graphic). It also didn't make sense that not one person ever figured out that Shel was so supremely evil and shouldn't have been in the Scouts (or just about anywhere).

The news articles, interviews, and other bumpers between chapters actually took away from the momentum of the story and shared information that want really necessary.

In fact, most of the characters fell into stereotypes and weren't very well fleshed out. And the ending, well, it was too much and not enough. I'm not sure I'll be reading any more of this author's books, although I still have one of his other books (not under this pen name) on my to-read list.