Justin Cronin's The Passage

One of the most sought after book's at BEA this year was The Passage by Justin Cronin.  It's a post apocalyptic thriller complete with a virus that turns people into vampire-like creatures.  According to a PW interview I read, Cronin's daughter asked him to write a story about a little girl who saves the world.  And he wrote The Passage in response.  The first of a trilogy, it's almost 800 pages.  But it lives up to the hype.

First, the unthinkable: a security breach at a secret U.S. government facility unleashes the monstrous product of a chilling military experiment. Then, the unspeakable: a night of chaos and carnage gives way to sunrise on a nation, and ultimately a world, forever altered. All that remains for the stunned survivors is the long fight ahead and a future ruled by fear—of darkness, of death, of a fate far worse.


As civilization swiftly crumbles into a primal landscape of predators and prey, two people flee in search of sanctuary. FBI agent Brad Wolgast is a good man haunted by what he’s done in the line of duty. Six-year-old orphan Amy Harper Bellafonte is a refugee from the doomed scientific project that has triggered apocalypse. He is determined to protect her from the horror set loose by her captors. But for Amy, escaping the bloody fallout is only the beginning of a much longer odyssey—spanning miles and decades—towards the time and place where she must finish what should never have begun.

There have been some comparison's to Stephen King's The Stand and with good reason.  Cronin's put together a powerful and epic tale, and despite it's length, those middle 500 pages fly by in no time.  And when I finally closed the book yesterday, I couldn't wait to discuss a few details and wonder what will happen in the next installment.  In face, the only downside to The Passage is that I have to wait two years for the next book to come out.