Justin Cronin's "The Passage" was the most epic vampire novel in recent memory, and a nice counterpoint to the hyperromanticized teen drivel like "Twilight." 
 So Cronin has a pretty hefty challenge in his second vampire novel, "The Twelve" -- he has to continue the story that he began in "The Passage," but without falling prey to sequelitis. And he succeeds wildly in both cases, crafting a darkly gritty, horrifying tale in a grim yet uplifting style. It's absolutely brilliant. 
 As with the first book, it's almost impossible to summarize "The Twelve's" plot. The backstory is that n the 21st century, scientists infected twelve death-row inmates with a mysterious virus... which turns them into insectile "viral" vampires. The virals spread across the US, infecting others and destroying civilization as they went. 
 Part of the story picks up in the time immediately after Year Zero, with awesome characters like a guy known as "Last Stand in Denver" who barricaded himself until the virals forced him to flee. And we also return to the characters we got to know in "The Passage," further exploring the story of "The Girl From Nowhere," the newly hybridized Alicia, and others who survived the first book. 
 It's also really hard to summarize a book like this -- it's a sprawling, non-linear tale that hops from one time period to another, even as the monstrous virals begin to mutate into different breeds. The only hope for humanity is to attack the viral hives, and even the Twelve themselves. 
 It's probably a good idea to refresh your memory by rereading "The Passage" before picking up "The Twelve." Cronin seems to have done his best to make it a standalone, but at the beginning I kept thinking, "Who was that again? What happened?" until I went back to my copy of the first book, flipped through it, and went "Ohhh, so that's what it was." 
 And once you've refreshed your memory, Cronin sucks you into his world and doesn't let go until the last page. His writing is rich, detailed and soaked in bloody, ruinous atmosphere, and he crafts the complicated plot into spiralling layers upon layers. Every part of his story feels like it was crafted with loving care, especially in his depiction of a world that has splintered like a shattered glass. 
 The best part is that he fills his world with such graphic ugliness and despair (one word: Guilder), but he also gives a sense that with enough work and struggle, humanity might just prevail. 
 You get that mainly from his vast cast of characters. Each character is multifaceted, and sometimes it leaves you uncertain what direction they will veer off into. You laugh, you cry, and you feel visceral seething hatred -- they are that well-drawn. It's particularly nice to have female leads who are smart and capable as their male counterparts! 
 It's going to be a couple more years before we see "The City of Mirrors," but "The Twelve" at least assures us that Justin Cronin's sweeping debut was not a fluke. If anything, this book is better.