The Troop” by Nick Cutter is a gripping horror novel that follows the harrowing experience of five teenage Boy Scouts and their Scoutmaster, Dr. Tim Riggs, on an annual camping trip to a remote, uninhabited island in Prince Edward Island, Canada. The story takes a terrifying turn when the troop encounters a bioengineered nightmare: genetically engineered intestinal hydatid worms unleashed on the island. As the boys and their Scoutmaster struggle to survive this horrific infestation, the novel delves into themes of survival, the loss of innocence, and the dark side of scientific experimentation. Described as a blend of “Lord of the Flies” and “28 Days Later,” the novel explores the depths of human resilience and the bonds tested when faced with unspeakable horror .
I have owned this book for a long time, but stayed away from it because I am not generally a fan of body horror or gross out scares, which, according to all the reviews I read or watched of this book online, was a staple of this novel, endorsed by none of other than the master of horror himself, Stephen King. While these claims are all true, all the same reviewers counted this among the scariest books they’d read in recent years. Once I decided to man up, and face my own fears surrounding the book’s subject matter, I was quite pleased to find I agreed with that assessment. Whatever gross out factors might be at work in the story are offset by the incredible writing of Nick Cutter, who is, as it turns out both a tremendously good stylist, writing vivid descriptions of events that bring the book’s characters to life, and also a damn good storyteller, weaving a tale in “The Troop” of real suspense, and yes, a downright scary story. The book earns comparisons to Golding’s “Lord of the Flies” which is not surprising given the setting; however, for me, it reminded me of another suspense-horror novel by an author whose blend of style and storytelling I also found incredibly compelling when I first read him, is Scott Smith’s “The Ruins.” I highly recommend Cutter’s “The Troop” and Smith’s “The Ruins” as a dual reading experience.
Sadly, Smith seems to have abandoned writing books or writing television shows, but Nick Cutter continues to turn out novels, and I have already ordered one of this others, “The Deep” which I am looking forward to reading next month.
Continuing my love of suspense and horror novels, as well as my quest for new authors I enjoy, I next read “After The People Lights Have Gone Off” by Stephen Graham Jones.
This collection of short stories is the first thing I’ve read by Stephen Graham Jones. I have had a couple of Mr. Jones’s other books, “The Only Good Indians” and “Don’t Fear the Reaper” on my wish list of books to read for a while now, but never got around to taking the plunge. Being a big fan of short stories, particularly those in the horror and suspense genre, I was happy to find that Mr. Jones is a practitioner of the lost art of the short story and had a couple of collections of his work available on audiobook. So I took the plunge with “After The People Lights Have Gone Off”. I am very glad I did. I thoroughly enjoyed the majority of the stories in this collection. Even better than any single story is the excitement all readers feel when they realize they’ve discovered a new author who writes in their favorite genre, which is the sense I came away with after reading this collection, in some cases reading a few of the stories twice.
The stories in this collection explore the darker sides of humanity and the unknown through a collection of horror stories. The book delves into themes of loss, fear, and the supernatural across various settings. Notable stories include The Spindly Man, (an interesting take on the Stephen King short story, The Man in Black Suit, which is itself a take on the classic suspense short story, Nathaniel Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown), which deals with the eerie presence at a book group, and “Brushdogs,” a father-son hunting trip that uncovers unsettling truths, and the title story, After The People Lights Go Off. Each story showcases Jones’s ability to blend everyday life with the grotesque, making the familiar unfamiliar and the mundane terrifying.
Turning to non-fiction for a moment, (though to a topic which is undoubtedly more terrifying than any of the scares in the fiction novels I mention above), I decided to do a deep dive reading books on the start of World War I and World War II to try to understand how those conflicts came about in order to understand what is happening in our world today, where we seem to be edging ever closer to World War III. For that I turned to Barbara W. Tuchman’s “The Guns of August” and John Keegan’s “The First World War”.
It’s hard to believe that after thirty years of not worrying if the world might end in a nuclear holocaust due to the start of World War III, we are now once again faced with the horrific prospect of another world war and all the consequences of one that would follow. Without getting political, the one thing that can be squarely laid at the foot of any president is the result of foreign policy. Two years of conflict between Ukraine and Russia with seemingly no plans to unwind end this conflict. The horrific terrorist attacks by Hamas from Gaza against Israel on October 7, which has resulted in the destabilization of the Middle East (which had been on the cusp of historic peace with The Abrahamic Peace Accords), a 100+ day conflict with over 140 hostages still held by the evil terrorists Hamas, not too mention revealing the vile antisemitism of so many self-proclaimed peaceful protestors, most of whom curiously support a terrorist organization that calls for actual genocide, while paradoxically claiming to want peace. Color me skeptical. But I digress…
The Guns of August” is a landmark historical work that meticulously chronicles the events leading up to and the first month of World War I, focusing on how the war began and the initial battles that set the tone for the years of conflict that followed. Tuchman’s narrative covers the diplomatic failures, strategic miscalculations, and the complex web of alliances and rivalries that propelled Europe into war. She vividly describes the opening movements of the conflict, from the German invasion of Belgium and France to the early battles on the Eastern Front, highlighting the outdated military tactics that led to unprecedented slaughter and stalemate. Tuchman’s work, awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction, is acclaimed for its accessible prose, exhaustive research, and its ability to convey the human dimension of war, making it an essential read for understanding the complexity and tragedy of World War I.
John Keegan’s “The First World War” offers a comprehensive overview of the entire conflict, analyzing its global impact and the strategies of both sides. Both authors highlight the tragic futility of the war and the complex interplay of nationalism and militarism leading to conflict. However, Keegan provides a broader scope, while Tuchman offers a more detailed narrative of the war’s beginnings, showcasing how initial events set a catastrophic course. Both books are incredibly good and deserving of all their respective accolades, despite being written at very different times. Each is, in its own right, rich in detail and analysis, and I often found myself going back and re-reading entire chapters in order to fully grasp all the information being conveyed by both historians. I suppose the one broad takeaway from both, which perhaps hold some relevancy for the predicament we find ourselves in today, is that in the run-up to the war, there were many opportunities for the countries being drawn into the conflict to de-escalate tensions. However, an abundance of egos, mindsets about the world hopelessy stuck in the previous century leading to misunderstandings of events and ultimately a miscalculation of the scale of the ultimate military conflict, led inevitably to the First World War, which in turn laid the ground for the Second World War which followed only twenty years later. Sadly, I am not sure we are any better off today.
Getting back to the world of fiction, I continued to read some entries into the world of what can broadly be described as action-adventure “spy fiction,” beginning with “Hell Bent” by Greg Hurwitz.
In “Hellbent,” the third book of the Orphan X series by Gregg Hurwitz, Evan Smoak, a government assassin turned rogue, faces a deeply personal mission. After breaking away from the Orphan Program, he becomes the Nowhere Man, dedicated to helping the desperate. I really enjoyed the first two books in the series, and have read several of Hurwitz’s other standalone novels, whose writing I find to be breezy and smooth, while never losing sight of that which is most important in any book, tv, or movie — telling a good story. The hero of Hurwitz’s “Orphan X” series is Evan Smoak, the highly trained government secret agent, who escapes from the program in order to set his own missions which focus on helping people who find themselves in trouble, often against far more powerful forces. He’s like a one-man “A Team.” The books, thus far, seem to follow two tracks: the missions Evan Smoak accepts helping regular people, and his evasion of his former handlers who are still searching for him, led by another of the former super-spies from the Orphan program. I enjoy this genre of contemporary fiction and have read several other authors working in it, from Lee Child’s Jack Reacher to Jack Carr’s James Reece, Mark Greaney’s The Gray Man, Vince Flynn’s Mitch Rapp series, and David Baldacci’s Will Robie. Hurwitz’s contribution of his Evan Smoak character brings some fun fiction and fast-paced storytelling to the genre. This time around, Orphan X’s mission comes from his mentor, Jack Johns, who is targeted by government forces trying to erase the Orphan Program. Evan must protect Jack’s last protégé, leading to a confrontation with the program’s new head, Van Sciver, who, like Smoak himself, was trained as part of the Orphan program.
“The Hit” by David Baldacci continues the thrilling adventures of Will Robie, a skilled government assassin renowned for never questioning orders and always eliminating his target.
However, when Robie is tasked with pursuing fellow assassin and colleague Jessica Reel, who has seemingly gone rogue, his unwavering loyalty is put to the test. Throughout the series, Robie is depicted as highly competent, morally complex, and deeply introspective, struggling with the ramifications of his profession on his personal ethics and relationships. This tension forms the crux of “The Hit,” as Robie navigates a web of deception to uncover the truth behind Reel’s actions and confronts broader moral questions about duty, loyalty, and justice.
Interestingly, this novel is cited in a non-fiction book called “The Bestseller Code” by Jodi Archer, purports to have used a computer-powered database of story tropes, characters, twists, and other elements to determine which books will become bestsellers as the quintessential example of a book which checks the most boxes. Like most of Baldacci’s work, this one was indeed a bestseller, and it was an enjoyable read — a kind of modern-day take on “The Spy Who Loved Me.” Still, of the few different books in the genre that I read in the past couple of months, this one was my least favorite. Shows to go you that AI and computer-powered databases can’t account for individual tastes.
As a comparative, I then decided to turn to a novel in the same genre, but which is a couple of decades older than the previous two, Nightfall by Nelson DeMille.
Nelson DeMille, along with Stephen King and Elmore Leonard, was one of the three contemporary authors I loved when growing up, a feeling that has persisted into adulthood, even if some of his more recent novels have not made quite the same impression on me as did “Plum Island” and “The Lion’s Game,” the first two books in the John Corey series. Nightfall was also a favorite of mine when it first came out, and as I am apt to do with DeMille’s books, I decided to give this one a re-read. Twenty years later, I am happy to say it did not disappoint. Nelson DeMille’s ‘Nightfall’ is the third book in the John Corey series, focusing on the investigation of TWA Flight 800’s explosion. With a keen detective’s eye, Corey uncovers evidence suggesting the official story might be a cover-up, which puts him at odds with federal agencies. John Corey, an ex-NYPD detective and now part of the Anti-Terrorist Task Force, is characterized as an unapologetically tough and un-PC protagonist. Cynical, tenacious, and often operating on his own moral compass, Corey navigates through bureaucratic red tape and danger with a blend of raw honesty and humor, making him a compelling figure in a post-9/11 world. He’s a throwback to the hard-edged male characters, known for his sharp wit, irreverent humor, and refusal to adhere to modern sensibilities, making him a standout character, especially among the crop of male “heroes” populating novels, television, and movies these days. I’ve tried for years to get the rights to this character and develop him as a series, but unfortunately, the studios, Lionsgate, and Sony, that have at one time or another optioned the character/series of books by DeMille, have not been able to pull off a successful take, and sadly, John Corey has yet to make his silver screen (out flat screen) debut. I still hope to change that someday. Until then, at least I have the novels.