Scavenger Hunt by Michaelbrent Collings

Written Insomnia Press, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-699207-49-9

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

Five strangers wake up in a room, with no memory of how they got there.  They find out they are part of a game controlled by a sinister mastermind, who wears a mask and communicates through electronic means.  The mastermind expects them to do bad things.  That’s the plot of Michaelbrent Collings’s newest thriller, and it’s a plot you’ve seen before, many times.  Collings himself used it in his previous novel, Terminal, and many authors, from King to Koontz, have also recycled it.  Unlike certain purveyors of said plot (example: the SAW and CUBE film franchises) Collings actually knows how to make an old plot seem new and fresh, due to the speed of the writing and the unseen twists that pop up throughout the book.  Scavenger Hunt is a fast ride through a familiar plot, and is worth the time to read.

Aside from the basic plot, there are elements that you can guess will show up.  The obvious one is that all the strangers were chosen for a reason.  Even though they don’t know each other, their lives were all connected at some point in the past.  Collings wisely spaces interlude chapters throughout the book, one for each character.  Each chapter fills in the backstory of one character, and it helps you see how the plot slowly ties together.  Collings also has a variety of chapters detailing police online investigations throughout the book that don’t seem related to the plot, but are, although the reasons don’t become apparent until later.  The whole story works this way: the reader gets a clue at a time to figure out the puzzle, but it’s a very difficult one to figure out, as Collings doesn’t give away anything obvious.

Therein lies the strength of this novel.  Not everything is as it seems, and the perception of the characters changes throughout the book, turning the story into a maddeningly elliptical puzzle.

The protagonists and antagonists flip roles throughout the book, and even what seems like a sick game might be perceived as salvation by the end.  Collings does an excellent job confounding expectations with this commonly used plot.   A nice touch was the creative way to keep the game players from simply running away, once they are free to go out on the streets.  Each player has a collar and wristwatch fitted with explosives, giving the game’s mastermind the freedom to blow a limb-or head-off of any of the players whenever he sees fit.  This is also one of the few stories of this type where some of the players are actually given a chance to leave the game, if they are fine with abandoning the other players to their fate.  It’s the little things that make an old plotline seem new and exciting.

Overall, this is a well-written, fast-paced story that should please fans of horror or thriller novels.  It has elements of both, but doesn’t swing too strongly one way or the other.  If you want excitement, don’t miss this one.  Recommended.

Contains: violence, profanity

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson