Justin Cronin · 2010 · survival

Justin Cronin's post-apocalyptic trilogy, comprising The Passage, The Twelve, and The City of Mirrors. A military experiment with a virus drawn from the South American jungle turns death-row inmates into immortal, vampiric predators who escape and all but destroy America. Across a century and a continent the survivors, led by a mysterious girl, struggle to endure and at last to carry the fight to its source. The route spans the ruined Americas from Bolivia to New York.

1. 1
   The Bolivian Jungle

   Deep in the Bolivian jungle a scientific expedition finds the source of a virus that grants a monstrous near-immortality, and carries it back to be weaponised.

2. 2
   Colorado

   At a secret Colorado laboratory the virus is tested on twelve condemned men; they break loose, and within weeks the infection sweeps the country and civilisation falls.

3. 3
   First Colony

   Nearly a century later, in the mountains of California, one of the last walled human refuges shelters behind its lights, until the arrival of the strange ageless girl Amy sends a small band out into the dead world.

4. 4
   Kerrville

   The fortified Republic of Texas, centred on Kerrville, becomes the heartland of surviving humanity through the long war against the virals and the Twelve.

5. 5
   The Homeland

   Far to the north, in Iowa, a brutal collaborationist settlement called the Homeland enslaves human survivors to feed the appetites of the enemy.

6. 6
   New York City

   On the ruined island of Manhattan, where Patient Zero has brooded for a hundred years, the survivors converge for the final reckoning that will decide the fate of the world.