A satisfying end to the series
I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
This was a great ending to The Passage trilogy. This review may be vague, but that's a necessary evil to keep it spoiler-free. Seriously though, if you haven't read the first two books, stop here and come back when you've read them, because this review is NOT spoiler-free for the whole series to date.
The City of Mirrors picks up where The Twelve left off. The viral horde has been vanquished at Homeland where eleven of the Twelve were killed after Amy went viral to save humanity, and the people left in Iowa and Kerrville, Texas appear to be safe to rebuild. Alicia, still half viral, has a different mission however, to track down the Zero and kill him, ending the viral threat forever. Amy has vanished, leaving Peter, Sarah, Hollis and Michael to return to Kerrville. Carter, the twelfth of the Twelve, remains a wild card, ensconced in his bunker in the wreck of the Chevron Mariner. Will he continue his silence or will he use his power to unleash a new horde of the virals called "Dopeys"?
The book, as usual, is extremely well written. Justin Cronin is a talented writer who pays great attention to detail and writes in flowing, engaging prose. The language he uses draws the reader in, making scenes that could be dry or turn into a boring info dumps really interesting. He can ratchet up the tension when needed, whether it's a slow burn to a major plot point, or a shorter build up to a sneak attack. He also resolves the plot in this book, something I really appreciate, since I've seen quite a few trilogies get bloated with side plots and become never-ending slogs, either because the writer has lost sight of the ending and just doesn't know what to do, or because the series was successful, and the writer wants to keep the book sales gravy train rolling.
Overall, I thought this was an excellent end to the series and well worth waiting for. I'm very interested to see what Justin Cronin writes next, but in the meantime, I'll be rereading this series from the beginning.