I was fortunate to win a copy of this book from Goodreads, the first time I've won one here. I was doubly fortunate since The Twelve is probably the 2012 release I was most looking forward to. 
 2012 has been the year of vampires for me. I finally read The Passage early in the year. Then I began to watch and get sucked into the rabbit hole that is Buffy and Angel. Cronin's books and Buffy are obviously very different. Buffy has its great humor and warm characters to go along with the vamps/demons that are just part of life on the hellmouth (everyone's reluctance to move away from Sunnydale always seems bizarre to me but what do I know). Cronin's books are darker and the perfect blend of a literary author of tremendous talent and a great vampire tale in an end of the world kind of way. 
 What both these books and Buffy have taught me is that the vampire genre doesn't have to suck. The possibilities are endless. The key as always lies in how good of a storyteller is at work. 
 The Passage obviously details how this vampire apocalypse began but we get a clearer picture in The Twelve as Cronin bring us back to Year Zero and the dawn of the virals. The Passage was mostly about this man made dystopia and people finding a way to survive this new world. The Twelve is successful at introducing a new flavor - a human element that is equally as terrifying as the virals, as we meet Guilder and his cronies in the present day, about 100 years after the initial outbreak. 
 There is a lot of action here especially during the climax of the book, and more action than I expected in the middle book of the trilogy. And the action is very well done. But for me, these books are more about Cronin's ability to blend in some beautiful prose amid a story about vampires. Moments of beauty among a dark, brutal would that will force you to think about many things. The writing just sets these books apart from most apocalyptic tales.