Going against the grain, the CREEPERS in the title of David Morrell’s new suspense thriller refer not to that which preys upon our protagonists, but the protagonists themselves. “Creepers” are also known as “urban explorers,” an underground subculture of people who like to look around – but not disturb – places they’re not supposed to be, such as subway tunnels or dilapidated buildings.
Here, the CREEPERS are comprised of a university history professor and three of his former students. They’re being joined for the dead of night by Frank Balenger, a reporter for The New York Times Sunday Magazine who wishes to write an article about their adventures as they infiltrate Asbury Park’s Paragon Hotel, the ritzy stay of yesteryear scheduled for demolition in the following week.
As expected, Morrell builds a heady brew of suspense as our group makes their way in via the sewer and discover mutated cats and rats. But that’s nothing compared to the discoveries and tragedies that await them inside the Paragon’s seven levels. To say any more would ruin the surprises, as several times throughout the tale, Morrell wildly jerks the wheel so that CREEPERS shifts gears (and even genres) to where one plot thread may no longer be revelant or one character isn’t who you thought he was anymore. You can only do that so many times without exasperating the reader, but luckily, he doesn’t cross that line until the last couple of pages.
Morrell’s most famous creation to date is John Rambo, the Vietnam vet suffering from a rage-fueling post-traumatic stress disorder, and there’s more than a little of him in Balenger, a two-time Gulf War vet suffering from a rage-fueling post-traumatic stress disorder. But other than that, CREEPERS is different from the author’s usual work. Straight action is his forté, and while CREEPERS has that, it’s largely in the realm of horror and suspense.
The first half of this book is absolutely terrific; the second half, less so, as his amazing forward momentum stumbles, not to a halt, but to a comparative crawl. There’s still a lot going on – including a PRECINCT 13-style dilemma and the inevitable story-to-story chase, livened with Morrell’s almost-pornographic descriptions of high-tech and low-tech weaponry – but it’s morphed from the novel it set out to be into another kind entirely. Still, CREEPERS is one I’d recommend.
And for more easily manageable bites of similar territory, check out Morrell’s BLACK EVENING, a collection of his short fiction of dark suspense. It’s even better.
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