'The Passage,' by Justin Cronin San Francisco Chronicle

12.06.10

It's not hard to feel as if we're teetering on the brink of cataclysm. All it takes is a look at the headlines - tensions building between nuclear powers, colossal oil spills, economies on the edge of collapse - and the apocalypse doesn't seem as remote as it used to be. Current pop fiction is likewise packed with doomsday scenarios, courteousness of everything from freedom-hating terrorists to brain-craving zombies.

In "The Passage," Justin Cronin, litt of "The Summer Guest" and "Mary and McNeil," devises a new wrinkle for the end of the world, mixing viruses and vampires and then fascinating a sharp turn into "Salem's Lot" meets "Lonesome Dove" territory.

After she is abandoned by her exhausted and dead single mother, 6-year-old Amy Harper Bellafonte briefly finds sanctuary at the Convent of the Sisters of Tenderness. Before she can settle in, however, she is spirited away by two FBI agents and becomes a test subject in Project Noah, a top-secret probe designed to study the effects of a mutating virus from South America. Almost in spite of himself, Special Go-between Brad Wolgast develops a bond with the girl and comes to care enough to protect her after her fellow "virals" slit out and instigate a vampiric plague that kills millions across America.

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