This book's first half could have been cut out entirely. There was no need for this book to be 400 pages long. A lot of the plot was just holding me back from the good stuff. I enjoyed the plot element of jumping from the future to the present, and back, but I didn't need all of the side quests described in full. There was also a lot of weird, intimate language used to describe children which made me uncomfy. I don't know why we needed details about a little girl's dress riding up, describing her underwear and explaining how it was wet with pee. That was very weird. It's possible to include children in horror and describing bad things happening to them without fetishizing them. That being said, the ending ROCKED, and the writing was strong overall. It was also very scary! 

not my favorite nick cutter book, but still a wild ride. my favorite line was delivered by the token corrupted priest during a pivotal drink-the-koolaid moment: 

“i’ve never lied to you,” he lied. “i never have lied to you.”

there’s something about the blunt delivery that made me chuckle at the absurdity. i find myself quoting it when i watch things on the news.

I enjoyed the book! It definitely has a slow start, but it pays off in the end. I liked the 1960s storyline quite a bit, but I feel like the 1980s storyline was underdeveloped and kinda unnecessary. Most of the time jumps were kinda jarring, and it might have been better to make most of the book chronological (except for maybe the prologue/part 1 at the beginning to build up interest). 

I really like the idea of a spaghetti western horror. The creatures were cool (especially the one made up of a bunch of different animal parts), and I really liked the main characters and their chemistry. The gory descriptions were pretty great and disturbing. I do think that this book was trying to do a bit too much, and I think the cult itself got pushed to the backburner.

I was super excited for this after loving The Troop but it definitely didn’t hit the same. There were so many offensive slurs that were completely irrelevant to the plot. Normally I love a cult story especially with horror elements but the horror descriptions were a little too obscure. Aside from that, I wasn’t a fan of the pacing or the repetition. I’m giving it 1.5 stars for Ebenezer and Ellen. 

I have previously read 2 other books by Nick Cutter; The Troop and The Deep, and I love how different and unique they both felt from one another and this one is no different. Telling 2 stories that take place in separate timelines, one in the 60's and another in the 80's, we follow a trio of hit men, first hired to kill one another, later working together to infiltrate a religious Cult in the scrubland to find a child. Getting into the Cult is easy enough but once inside there's something in the wild abducting children and it won't let them leave. The 2 storylines style is always gamble but it worked well enough here, giving us insight into each of the characters and getting to know them so well that when we flashback to the present timeline, we already know them. Another thing I loved, and I don't know if this is the case, but this gives me a Cormac Mccarthy feel to it, as if Cutter was trying to emulate his style and its not 1:1 but I didn't need it to be. The way he describes the setting, as someone who's never been to the American southwest, I can still picture and feel.it perfectly in my mind, might also be a big contribution to the McCarthy feel as well, but also in the character work. Speaking of characters, despite following hired killers who've all done deplorable things and have no problem with taking a life, they feel sympathetic enough to never be dislikeable and I think that's because he gave us an even more deplorable villain in the preacher Amos Flescher, who leads the cult. My only complaint is while the human menace is easy enough to understand, the supernatural one is still a little bit of a mystery to me by the end. What is it? Where did it come from? Why can it do the things that it can do? How is it able to? Why does it? It's a very cool monster but I never felt like I got a good idea why it did the things it did. I would say this is the weakest of the 3 for me but in no way a bad book, and I would recommend it if you're curious in the slightest.

hrmrmrm where do I begin w this book? ill start off by saying I read The Troop a few years back and really loved that back. Nick Cutter has a nauseatingly strong grasp of body horror and it shines through in this book just as much as the former. I am a huge fan of media surrounding cults, but not so much folklore, so maybe this book was not quite up my alley. I prefer psychological and paranormal horror to monsters, although I will say the monster (?) of this book had a very very heavy psychological aspect that I really liked. overall, it was enjoyable, but it definitely felt drawn out and I don't know if the split timelines were the right move. we spent a vast majority of the novel in the past and a few blips in the present, with an ending that felt unsatisfying and sudden to me.