Creepers
By David Morrell
Rating: 6 out of 10

PREFACE: Now, I realize that this book is outside of my original list. Considering my existing pace, I’ll easily surpass the 25 books I planned to read, so I thought I would add this one. If I have another to read, I’ll likely read Holy Blood, Holy Grail in anticipation of the Da Vinci Code this summer.

A few weeks back, Brad gave me a book to read. He said that it was a great book - I think that I had just completed The Historian, which he loved, and so I thought I would give Creepers by David Morrell a shot. I started the book last Saturday during my downtime of the tournament. Having finished Ogilvy on Advertising, I thought that my trip to Seattle would be as good of a time as any to get the book done.

It was a really long flight to Seattle. I watched the entire first disc of Scrubs Season Two, but my battery ran out, so I thought it would be good to start the book.

Creepers is an extremely fast read (I feel like I’ve said that a lot during my reading project). Brad had indicated that I would probably be able to read it in about a day. Once I got rocking on the book, it was tough to put down. It was different than The Historian, though. It wasn’t hard to put down because it was written extremely well, but rather because the story just pushed the reader along as fast as possible.

Despite its horror-like title and cover artwork, Creepers isn’t quite as scary as it sounds. In fact, the word “creepers” actually refers to people who like to call themselves “urban explorers” who infiltrate old, abandoned buildings to study the history of the buildings and to learn more about the past. This activity is highly illegal, but there are groups all over the world that do so.

Creepers follows the exploits of a group of urban explorers who infiltrate an abandoned New Jersey Hotel called The Paragon. They are joined by a journalist named Frank Balenger who is doing a feature story on creepers. But, much like the hotel, Frank isn’t all that he seems. The ensuing evening is filled with nightmares as the exploration of the hotel turns into a desperate attempt for survival.

I liked the book, but I think that I went into it expecting more (sorry, Brad). And to me, the book felt a little like a Dan Brown book that was really good, but just got wrapped up hastily at the end. I actually think it would be a good movie, but it would be a tough one to make.

Anyway, it was an entertaining travel read, but I think I will look forward to the movie more (although, now that I know what happens, I don’t know what the point would be!). I have another book to read on the way back, The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell.

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