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Scavenger
reviewed by
After discovering and using "urban exploration" in his Stoker Award-winning novel Creepers, David Morrell (First Blood, The Totem, Testament, Double Image, Desperate Measures, et al) now turns his attention to an intriguing blend of unusual trends: geocaching, VR gaming, and time capsules. Suffice to say, you'll learn a lot about all three as you work your way through this new and rather breathless thriller. Morrell is a first-rate researcher whose novels always instruct while they thrill.
Frank Balenger and Amanda Evert survived the dark events in the Paragon Hotel (Creepers) and have become inseparable, each helping the other heal wounds both visible and deeply hidden. Unfortunately, as Scavenger begins, they are lured to a lecture on time capsules and Amanda is kidnapped, only to awaken somewhere far away in the company of four strangers who have also been kidnapped. The five are given a strange task to accomplish, for which they need to gather clues and supplies in game-like fashion. Far away, Belanger awakens with a suspicious infected bump on his arm and an insistent caller who sends him in search of Amanda. Meanwhile, Amanda and the four other victims are given forty hours to decipher their clues and locate a long-lost time capsule in the middle of a "ghost" valley. Both Belanger and Amanda's quests turn fatal as their tormentor, who insists on being called the Game Master, proves that he can kill from afar and is not shy about doing so if his rules aren't followed. It's only a matter of time until the two game threads are connected and tied together into a satisfying knot.
The breathless pacing moves the plot along so quickly that there's little time to consider some of the mild implausibles, such as Belanger's slightly-too-inspired accumulation of clues. Compared to Morrell's earlier, denser work (The Brotherhood of the Rose, for instance), this novel may appear skeletal and screenplay-ready—but the flipside is a thrill-ride rarely slowed by any but necessary exposition and driven almost completely by action that often helps delineate character. We don't learn everything about Belanger and Amanda, but by the end of Scavenger, you'll feel as if you've been through the wringer with them.