BOOK REVIEW: The Passage

If Stephen King’s The Stand and Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend were to have a love child, it would be THE PASSAGE by Justin Cronin. In a near future setting, The Passage tells of how the United States went from the world we know to a world of fear and darkness -- of a fate worse than death.

FBI agents Brad Wolgast and his partner have been collecting men from death rows in penitentiaries around the country. The men that they rescue have no families and no chance of ever being set free. All that the agents know is to take the men to a secret government location and to make sure that no trail is left behind. About the time that Wolgast is aware that witnesses are being killed to insure that there is no trail, he is asked to pick up a six-year old girl, Amy Harper, at a convent.

At the secret facility where he takes the child, he discovers that he may be considered a “ witness” by the people in charge. As he escapes with Amy, the men who have been used in the experiments also escape and within thirty-two minutes civilization changes into a land of horror.

Almost one-hundred years later, the people of the Colony are living behind tall walls believing that they may be the last people alive. Bright lights burn all night to help protect them from the enemy. The enemy, or “Smokes” as the people call them, only attack at night and have a strength and powers unknown by the humans.

One evening Amy appears at the gate and her appearance starts an other type of terror and an odyssey to take her and her companions back to the place that started the horror.

Author Justin Cronin has given us not only a suspenseful adventure, but an epic story of how man can endure through unimaginable danger. The story is so full of unexpected turns and suspense that it is hard not to tell too much in a review. I hope that I have whetted your imagination, but not ruined the suspense.

If you want to take a chance on a style that borders somewhere between science-fiction, horror, human drama and suspense---or if this is already your reading pleasure--Cronin is an author to watch for.