Justin Cronin on vampire thriller 'The Twelve'

'The Twelve' by Justin Cronin
Book cover courtesy of publisher

Author Justin Cronin is out with 'The Twelve '- the follow-up to his bestselling vampire thriller, 'The Passage.'

From the Entertainment Weekly review:

These dracs are a different beast from the pasty-faced blood-draining lovebirds you're now picturing with some degree of fondness or disgust. They're vicious and animalistic, armed with limb-ripping teeth and claws and driven by an insatiable thirst. They were born of a military-cultivated virus, which the government injects into 12 (note that number) death-row inmates--turned--test subjects in the first book. Things predictably spiral out of control, and the virus -- oops! -- destroys modern civilization. But pockets of humanity remain, and Cronin's novels trace both the onset of the disaster and the efforts of survivors almost 100 years later to fight back...

'The Twelve' doesn't always match 'The Passage's' dexterous storytelling and almost-plausible world creation, but it's still an unnerving and mostly satisfying tale of existential-threat disaster and its harrowing aftermath.

Cronin joined The Daily Circuit Oct. 25, 2012 to talk about his new novel.

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