FULL SUMMARY
The Troopby Nick Cutter

Full Book Summary

The Troop

At a Glance

  • Genre: Biological horror; survival thriller
  • Setting: Remote Falstaff Island off Prince Edward Island, Canada
  • Perspective: Third-person narrative intercut with epistolary documents (reports, interviews, articles)

For a deeper dive, see the Full Book Summary.

Opening Hook

A Boy Scout weekend on a deserted island promises campfire stories and badges—until hunger that isn’t human shambles into the cabin. What begins as a routine trip becomes a nightmare of infection, paranoia, and collapsing order. As the boys watch their Scoutmaster’s body turn against him, their own alliances rot just as quickly. The island seals them in, the worms breed, and civilization falls away one terrible choice at a time.

Plot Overview

Act I: Arrival and Intrusion

Scoutmaster Tim Riggs—a small-town doctor—brings five fourteen-year-old scouts to Falstaff Island: the observant Max Kirkwood, hot-headed Ephraim Elliot, swaggering athlete Kent Jenks, brilliant outcast Newton Thornton, and unsettlingly calm Shelley Longpre. Their first night is shattered by a skeletal stranger—Thomas Henry Padgett—raving with bottomless hunger. Tim brings him inside; the man destroys their radio and isolates the troop completely. Interspersed documents reveal the truth: Padgett escaped a covert experiment by amoral scientist Dr. Clive Edgerton—a genetically engineered tapeworm “diet aid” that devours its hosts. The island is now an accidental lab. (See Chapter 1-5 Summary.)

Act II: Infection and Fracture

Padgett dies grotesquely. Tim’s makeshift autopsy exposes writhing parasites; a slip in sterile caution dooms him. By the time the boys return from a hike, Tim is gaunt and paranoid, his authority eaten away from within. Kent drinks from a contaminated bottle and starts to fray, while Shelley fans distrust, nudging the group toward fear and force. The boys wrest control, locking Tim in a closet as their social contract snaps. (See Chapter 6-10 Summary and Chapter 11-15 Summary.)

Act III: Storm and Unraveling

A violent storm slams a tree through the cabin, killing Tim—whose corpse births a torrent of worms, proof of the parasite’s reproductive power. Hunger gnaws at the boys as hard as fear; alliances splinter, and Kent’s infection turns him animal. Shelley, a predator in human skin, manipulates panic into bloodshed, orchestrating Kent’s drowning and pushing Ephraim—terrified he’s infected—toward self-mutilation and, finally, fire. The troop is no longer a troop. (See Chapter 21-25 Summary, Chapter 31-35 Summary, and Chapter 36-40 Summary.)

Act IV: Last Choices

Shelley’s cruelty collapses in a final confrontation, and Max and Newton put him down. The island is nearly silent now—except for the parasite. Newton realizes he’s infected but uses his mechanical know-how to help Max jury-rig a boat with spark plugs scavenged from Padgett’s remains. At the military quarantine line, Newton rises to confess his condition and is shot; Max, alone, is taken into custody, a living specimen of survival and trauma. (See Chapter 41-45 Summary and Chapter 46-50 Summary.)

Central Characters

The boys begin as familiar archetypes—leader, rebel, jock, brain, loner—but isolation and infection strip them to their cores. For deeper profiles, visit the Character Overview.

  • Max Kirkwood: The watcher and reluctant conscience.

    • Traits: empathetic, steady under pressure, morally anchored
    • Arc: Strives to keep the troop human as the rules fall away; survives, but scarred.
    • Fate: Sole survivor, detained for study.

  • Ephraim Elliot: The rebel with a loyal streak.

    • Traits: impulsive, protective of Max, combustible temper
    • Arc: Terror of infection curdles into self-destruction under Shelley’s goading.
    • Fate: Self-immolation.

  • Kent Jenks: The alpha who believes strength equals right.

    • Traits: domineering, confident, physically imposing
    • Arc: Infection magnifies his brutality; Shelley weaponizes him, then discards him.
    • Fate: Drowned.

  • Newton Thornton: The brain underestimated by everyone.

    • Traits: analytical, inventive, self-deprecating
    • Arc: Uses science to navigate chaos; accepts his infection with stark clarity.
    • Fate: Killed by sniper at quarantine.

  • Shelley Longpre: The void where empathy should be.

    • Traits: calculating, affectless, predatory
    • Arc: Thrives as order decays; turns fear into a tool until others turn on him.
    • Fate: Killed in final struggle.

  • Tim Riggs: The adult authority who can’t save them.

    • Traits: compassionate, dutiful, decisive under pressure
    • Arc: Medical ethics and mercy expose him to the parasite; his fall precipitates the troop’s.
    • Fate: Killed during storm; corpse erupts with worms.

  • Thomas Henry Padgett: The warning they don’t heed.

    • Role: Escapee host whose arrival ignites the crisis
    • Fate: Dies early; body reveals the parasite’s nature.

  • Dr. Clive Edgerton: The god-player behind the curtain.

    • Role: Architect of the engineered tapeworm weaponized as a “diet aid”
    • Function: Embodies scientific hubris and corporate amorality.

Major Themes

For broader discussion, see the Theme Overview.

  • Body Horror and Biological Corruption The parasite turns bodies into battlegrounds, erasing autonomy and devouring identity. Cutter’s anatomical detail isn’t just shock—it forces readers to confront the terror of becoming a thing, a host whose desires are puppeted by a hunger that isn’t theirs.

  • The Breakdown of Civilization and Social Order With adult authority infected and communication severed, the troop’s badges and rules crumble. Power reverts to force and manipulation; fear becomes law, echoing Golding’s thesis but grounding the “beast” in biology that makes savagery feel inevitable.

  • Loss of Innocence The trip begins with ghost stories and ends with murder, quarantine, and vivisectional horror. Each boy confronts a personal threshold—what he’ll do to live—and crosses it, leaving childhood behind not by choice but by contagion.

Literary Significance

The Troop revives the “paperback nasty” lineage with 21st-century anxieties—pandemics, gene editing, bioterror—while honoring and updating Lord of the Flies. By replacing Golding’s ambiguous beast with a verifiable organism, the novel reframes moral collapse as a biological pressure test: what happens when ethics must compete with appetite and survival. Its epistolary inserts—reports, interviews, news clippings—widen the canvas without slackening pace, a technique that builds dread through implication as effectively as any gore. Celebrated by voices like Stephen King, the book stands out for its surgical control of tension, unflinching body horror, and its bleak diagnosis of human nature under quarantine. For memorable lines and moments, see the Quotes page.