Creepers are urban explorers - they covertly (and usually illegally) enter abandoned buildings and discover lost worlds hidden in plain view. Adopting the motto of the naturalist Sierra Club, they aim to "take only photos, leave only footprints."
Tenured history professor Robert Conklin has arranged an expedition - to the Paragon Hotel in Asbury Park, which was internally-boarded up by it's recluse millionaire owner Morgan Carlisle, an agoraphobic hemophiliac, in the early 1970's. Accompanying Professor Conklin are three former students and a reporter, Frank Balenger.
They break in through a large underground sewerage access system, encountering a number of blind and deformed rats (two tails, multiple legs) on the way. The hotel itself is derelict but amazing - Carlisle had maintained the Art Deco theme for the life of the hotel, creating a trip back in time. Of course, not everything goes to plan...
My previous experiences with Morrell have been his thriller novels (Fraternity of the Stone, Brotherhood of the Rose), beginning with the prototype for Rambo, the novel First Blood. Creepers is a very different novel, but similarly compelling. It opened with a foretaste of catastrophe, but kept me guessing about the form this would take - the deformed animals set me up for a James Herbert-esque tale, but Morrell was more cunning than that. The pace was brisk, there were a number of twists and turns (mostly genuinely surprising but plausible), and the world of the hotel was entrancing. All in all a very satisfying novel. - Alex
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