On a sunny morning in June, Margaret Carpenter wakes up to find a new iPhone on her doorstep. She switches it on to find a text from her best friend, Charity Atwater. The problem is, Charity’s been missing for over a month. Most people in town—even the police—think she’s dead.
Margaret and Charity have been lifelong friends. They share everything, know the most intimate details about one another…except for the destructive secret hidden from them both. A secret that will trigger a chain of events ending in tragedy, bloodshed, and death. And now Charity wants Margaret to know her story—the real story. In a narrative that takes place over one feverish day, Margaret follows a series of increasingly disquieting breadcrumbs as she forges deeper into the mystery of her best friend—a person she never truly knew at all…
It feels like another lifetime ago that I read the first of the four Nick Cutter books that I’ve now read, THE TROOP (I’ve also read THE SATURDAY NIGHT GHOST CLUB, by Craig Davidson…Nick Cutter is a pen name!)
I followed up THE TROOP with THE DEEP, a claustrophobic deep sea nightmare. And more recently, I read THE HANDYMAN METHOD, a somewhat satirical yet suuuper fucked up haunted house novel (co-authored by Andrew F. Sullivan).
But for sure…for good or bad…it’s THE TROOP that has always stuck with me. The book was more disgusting than anything I had ever read before. And well…maybe since? If not, it’s a near thing. I’ve read some pretty extreme horror between then & now, but something about THE TROOP just messed me up. There are other aspects of THE TROOP that are profoundly disturbing, but for the purposes of this review, I’m just focusing on the gore. There was just…so much. Oozing, squirming, festering…just mountains of ick.
But buried under all the carnage are the bones of an utterly brilliant coming-of-age horror novel. I remember walking away from THE TROOP (or crawling away, maybe) being really impressed with Cutter’s writing, and I’ve stayed curious about his work over these last few years.
So I jumped at the opportunity to read an ARC for THE QUEEN, his upcoming sci-fi/horror novel. And without hesitation, this is my favorite novel of his. This one grabbed ahold of me right away, and I kinda loved every moment I spent with this book.
The structure of this novel is unusual in a way, and I was surprised to see in the acknowledgments that Cutter mentions Jay Asher’s THIRTEEN REASONS WHY as an influence (I’ve never read the book, but have watched the show multiple times). There’s for sure some thematic overlap between the two stories, but it makes me really curious about the structure of THIRTEEN REASONS WHY (the book).
Margaret Carpenter’s best friend is missing, and feared dead. Which makes it very jarring when a brand new iPhone is delivered to Margaret’s house & starts immediately pinging with messages from Charity, Margaret’s missing/dead friend.
There’s also three boys missing from Margaret’s town for the last couple weeks (Charity has been gone longer), and there’s some sketchy connections between all these kids. A drunken party, a burned-out old van, and a potential sexual assault. These are just a few of the puzzle pieces we’re given.
But Margaret begins to receive more and more clues from whoever is texting her. Whether it is Charity or not kind of hangs over the entirety of the book, the central part of the mystery. Margaret really only has one other friend she can count on in this situation, a boy named Harry who is definitely in love with her & who she has a bit of history with. They follow the clues together, slowly unraveling the mystery and discovering untold horrors.
On the other side of the story is the deliverer of said horrors, one Rudyard Crate. A billionaire with a curious streak & a deeply traumatic childhood event that plagues him, he’s the living embodiment of that quote from Jurassic Park: “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”
There’s definitely more than a bit of Jurassic Park vibes here, only instead of recreating dinosaurs, Crate is working on creating some unholy wasp-human abominations.
If it sounds like Margaret’s story & Crate’s story couldn’t possibly intersect…it feels that way when you’re reading the book, too. But oh god…when they do, and you see how everything fits together…it’s just a full-fledged nightmare.
I can’t tell if Margaret’s chapters actually make up more of the book, or if it was just that I greatly preferred her side of the story. Her chapters are first-person, and so we really get inside her head as the story unfolds. We learn a lot about her friendship with Charity, and just how intense and sort’ve life-altering it was, almost from the beginning. The book captures the vibe of being a teenager with a startling clarity, and I would honestly put THE QUEEN up there with some of the very best coming-of-age horror novels I’ve ever read.
This one kind of blew me away. I’m not sure I went into this with any expectations that this book would impact me emotionally, but there were parts of this that were almost unbearably gut-punchy. I fucking adored THE QUEEN…it’s unpredictable, gross (of course it’s gross), captivating, and wonderfully heartfelt. This is the perfect addition to a Halloween Season TBR!
Massive thanks to Gallery Books for sending the ARC my way! THE QUEEN releases October 29th!
Grimdark Dad 