The Passage by Justin Cronin

The last few years I’ve been putting off reading Justin Cronin’s remarkable saga, The Passage. This procrastination resulted from no perceived flaw in the book, but rather my desire not to begin the much lauded trilogy until the final book, City of Mirrors had been published. It has been out for nearly a year, but like many a reader, I had become distracted by other fare. After finally checking it out last week, I finished the 766 page book in three days. It was that good. Unlike many post-apocalyptic/sci-fi novels, The Passage doles out its plot with reserve. This suits me. Unlike many novels fitting within the aforementioned genres, wherein the first 20 pages outline and foreshadow nearly every plot development, Cronin’s work is a masterpiece of suspense, a real page-turner.

The story begins to unfold through a series of emails. A scientist, Jonah Lear, relays updates on a daring journey to discover the cure for everything in the South American jungle. He is chagrined to admit to his friend that he has received funding for the expedition from USAMRIID (US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases). Soon he finds his expedition co-opted by the military, for reasons he cannot ascertain. The emails then begin to take a troubling turn as the team nears their destination.

Fast-forward some months. FBI agent Wolgast has been tasked with retrieving death row inmates for an experiment in the Colorado mountains. It soon becomes apparent to the reader that the subjects of the experiment have developed a power more insidious than is perceived by their keepers. Lear sends Wolgast on one final mission. He and agent Doyle are sent to claim one more target, a six year-old girl, Amy, abandoned by her mother at a convent. Wolgast, who lost a daughter of his own, develops a bond with the girl. One that will prove fateful for them both when the 13 original subjects break free from their captors and unleash an apocalyptic terror upon the continent, and possibly the world.

Some years later the reader is introduced to one of the last surviving colonies in North America, possibly the only enduring colony. They have scraped together a semblance of a life, by finding an ingenious way of keeping the “smokes” at bay. But time is running out, and some members of the colony appear to have fallen under the sway of a presence who has invaded their sleeping minds. Several brave members strike out across the Dark Lands in order to find both answers and solutions. The discoveries they make on their journey are unsettling and never predictable.

This book kept me up nights and I’m eager to get a start on the second installment, The Twelve. Any fans of suspense, sci-fi, horror, or just plain well-written novels would do well to take a look at what the New York Times hailed as "A blockbuster…astutely plotted and imaginative." This work is available for check-out as an EBOOK, 12-disc audio book, and hardback novel.

-Jennifer Wilson