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The Passage (Abridged): A Novel
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The Passage (Abridged): A Novel
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The Passage (Abridged): A Novel
Audiobook (abridged)14 hours

The Passage (Abridged): A Novel

Written by Justin Cronin

Narrated by Edward Herrmann

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

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Currently unavailable

Currently unavailable

About this audiobook

It happened fast. Thirty-two minutes for one world to die, another to be born.

An epic and gripping tale of catastrophe and survival,The Passage is the story of Amy-abandoned by her mother at the age of six, pursued and then imprisoned by the shadowy figures behind a government experiment of apocalyptic proportions. But Special Agent Brad Wolgast, the lawman sent to track her down, is disarmed by the curiously quiet girl and risks everything to save her. As the experiment goes nightmarishly wrong, Wolgast secures her escape-but he can't stop society's collapse. And as Amy walks alone, across miles and decades, into a future dark with violence and despair, she is filled with the mysterious and terrifying knowledge that only she has the power to save the ruined world.

Look for the entire Passage trilogy:
THE PASSAGE | THE TWELVE | THE CITY OF MIRRORS

Editor's Note

Escapist reads…

An acclaimed post-apocalyptic thriller, this first entry in the Passage trilogy introduces a chaotic world and the hardened heroes who have to try to save it.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateJun 8, 2010
ISBN9780739366516
Unavailable
The Passage (Abridged): A Novel

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Reviews for The Passage (Abridged)

Rating: 3.9080237496582466 out of 5 stars
4/5

3,365 ratings394 reviews

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    It's just like the government to create a virus to make a better soldier and test it on a 6 year old then let it get out of hand and destroy the world. I really enjoyed this book I can't wait to read the next
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Wow!! I can’t believe I hadn’t heard of this trilogy and now it’s a TV series. That’s why I chose to read it. The TV trailer intrigued me, and when I started reading I couldn’t stop until 800+ pages later. Book 2 here I come."What we’re doing here is perfectly legal–hell, it may be the most important piece of medical research in the history of mankind. But it could be easily misunderstood."The government’s Project NOAH is out of control. They were using a virus on insignificant people, but when those subjects–later called virals–got loose, the government realized their mistake which was too late for the human race."There’s safe and then there’s safe. I won’t lie to you. There are risks. But we’ll do everything we can to minimize them."A young girl named Amy who was part of the experiment has the power to stop the carnage, and many brave heroes risk their lives to make sure she keeps hers.A fantastic post-apocalyptic suspense thriller that deals with an immediate viral outbreak and continues many years later. Mr. Cronin is an incredible writer who makes you feel like you are in the thick of the chaos and mayhem of those who have little to no chance of surviving a viral menace. His characters give you hope, apprehension, horror, and belief all at the same time.It’s a book that pushes you to read well past your bedtime while you make sure to lock your doors and windows before you go to sleep. Highly recommend.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    If you read this novel, don't blame me. I warned you. It was an experience well beyond the painful. It was a muddy field of bad writing, horrible plot devices and an enormous narrative leap which I found humiliating to endure. What is my excuse? I wish I could answer that. I was going to Miami and felt that I could coast through such while banking on Balzac for the more serious moments. That isn't sufficnt. Don't follow my error.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The first third was amazing. I’m thinking my new favorite. Then it jumps 90 years in the future. New situations, new cast of characters. Sooooo boring. I don’t care about these people at all. What happened?

    First part of the book - amazing. Next part - boring. Then towards the end, it picks up again and I like it. Once the characters leave the colony and start traveling across the country it becomes interesting again. But life in that colony - that part could have been left out. It didn't make me care about any of the people and really took me out of the story.

    The end of the book was pretty depressing. Be prepared for almost everyone to die. Is there any hope? Who knows. There are two more books in this series. Will I read them? Maybe, but I am not seeking them out anytime soon.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is the second book in just a couple months which has delivered a gut punch in the last few pages. While it's nice to be surprised and reminded that I'm reading Horror and not Happy Ending, it's also sad to see characters with which I'm emotionally engaged suddenly suffer. Another surprise from this book was that I didn't expect the bulk of the novel to be set in such an apocalyptic future. I knew the book was about vampires and the end of the world but didn't realize that it was the vampire apocalypse. That tone shift occurred about a fourth of the way into the book, the same point as the time jump forward. I'll try to be good and not give away any spoilers but I can't promise it.The story starts and focuses on Amy. Amy's mom tries to do her best but unfortunately her mom is too young and lacks the ability to do provide too much. Amy is abandoned at a convent in Memphis. She is not there long before FBI agent Brad Wolgast picks her up for some military-financed biomedical experiments. The experiments go awry, people die, and the story flash forwards 93 years. The story then focuses on Peter Jaxon who lives in a small community which uses high-watt lights to fend off the virals. On an expedition to recharge the batteries, Peter discovers and is followed by a mute girl who ends up changing the life of everyone in the community.Similar to a lot of the reviews I've seen, I loved the first part of the novel: everything before the time jump. The characters were rich and easy to follow. I could picture everyone in my head pretty easily. After the time jump, the story was great: complex, full, engaging. However, the characters were problematic to me. I had constant problems with knowing roughly how old any of them were; everyone seemed to be young-ish but then there would be a passage describing how one character had been around for a while and I would be confused. Then I also had problems remembering who all the characters were. There were 3-4 that I could remember but then everyone else was a blur. The story helped at that point because it basically killed everyone except for a dozen. Then I was really getting to know those characters and thought I knew where the story was going to end when the gut punch happened. Characters that I was emotionally attached to died. It's possible that THE TWELVE, book #2 of The Passage Trilogy, will prove things to be not that bad. To be honest though, I'm not sure I want that; I would rather the story keep true to the emotional punch than go back on it. Cronin has created a complex world with a lot of details. The story goes in directions that you don't expect. As with life, some of those changes are enjoyable and some of them are not. I'm happy I read the book. If my To Be Read stack wasn't so large, I would buy the sequels in a heartbeat. Instead I'll probably wait for a sale and then pick them up.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A gripping story...with a few irritating plot aspects: Cronan seems to add way more detail developing his villains than necessary. But, as it turns out after reading the final book in the series, the extended personality descriptions explain a lot about the why and who of the bad..and the not bad.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Wonderful story telling. The characters are so vibrant and alive!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This is a different type of dystopia America. The government has created some kind of virus that they are testing on inmates to use the newly created “creatures” as weapons to take to the Middle East. The book doesn’t really say when in time it is but you get a sense that it is somewhere around 2140. The creatures get loose and kill people. These creatures are like vampires but only worse. You don’t want to be out at night. This book is creepy in the sense that I can see a few crazy people thinking this is a good idea and the idiots they are, they can’t contain/control it. So all hell breaks loose and the America as we know it is destroyed. This book is long. I opted to get the large print from the library which was almost 1,200 pages. It seems like a lot of information being given. Don’t know if it all needed to drag out like it does in the book, especially since this is the first of a trilogy. But also I can see how a base needs to be established for the next two books. Still, it’s a little long. There are unanswered questions throughout the book, and there are a few times I felt the description was slightly confusing for me to follow what was going at that time. Other than that it is well written and I could visualize what was happening with the characters really well. If you like this type of story, then I recommend picking it up.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Oh what a roller coaster. The first third is slooooooow and I hated everyone. It's all set-up to no real purpose, as most of the storylines here are then dropped and have very little bearing on the main thrust of the action (to the extent that if you just started reading at The Book of Auntie about 250 pages in, I don't think you'd feel you'd missed anything and I don't think you'd struggle to understand what was going on). The central 500 pages are solid, with engaging POVs and tense action sequences. It's a little flabby in places, but I largely enjoyed it and got far more involved with some of the peripheral characters than I expected. I also quickly warmed to Peter and adopted Lish as my favourite character. It's classic post-apocalypse, applying both post-apocalypse and vampire tropes to good effect. But after a competent climax, the ending is protracted and consequently feels slightly - and unfairly - unsatisfying. I think it would have been a stronger novel with less in it, allowing it to have a single-minded focus on Peter's quest to get Amy to Colorado.Interesting ideas, but overall not my apocalypse, I think. I'm not sure I'll bother with the sequels. Full review.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    [Cross-posted to Knite Writes]So, this 900 page monster took me about three weeks to read, and for the first time in a long time, I didn’t actually mind the length. This book was epic on so many dimensions there’s no way I can describe them in a single review, so I’m just going to summarize some key points as best I can.The world-building — By far the strongest element of the book. 900 pages doesn’t seem that long when every page describes a rich, vibrant world. Beginning with a spot-on depiction of an alternate 2014 where things have slipped slightly farther toward a true dystopia and moving into a post-apocalyptic community with an expertly constructed culture based on the remnants of the world that came before, Cronin nails the world-building in this book.The characters — Going hand in hand with the world-building, the characters in this book were excellent. From the minor characters to the main protagonists, every personality was well thought out, every backstory was interesting; there wasn’t a single character I thought could have been cut or reworked in any way.The plot — Yet another strong aspect of the story. The plot isn’t totally original in terms of its premise or execution, but Cronin pulls it off far better than most. There are no noticeable holes, no leaps of logic, and nothing appears to be missing. It’s a well-written, deep, and introspective story that offers a fairly fresh take on the vampire apocalypse genre.The only sore point in this book for me was a event that took place near the end that irritated me quite a bit. The book spent a great deal of time leading into a certain conclusion, and then that conclusion, which I expected to open up A LOT of new doors, ended up being literally thrown away a few pages later. I was let down by that, because I really wanted to see what it would lead to.Other than that, though, this book made for a pretty epic read, and at some point in the future, I will read the sequel.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Assisted by bad military experimenters, vampires take over the world, except there’s one nearly-immortal girl who survives and may be able to save what’s left of humanity. Comparisons to Stephen King are obvious; there’s something of the same rhythm-of-life/willingness to spend time on the details in Cronin’s writing (not to mention that the plotof The Passage could be described as sutured together from The Stand, Salem’s Lot, and a dose of The Green Mile). But underlying it is a much more Dean Koontz-like “everything happens for a reason,” whereas King is quite upfront about his basic philosophy that bad things happen because they can. I much prefer King’s take on the problem of evil, because Cronin’s universe (or God) must delight in suffering, whereas King’s is merely indifferent. That’s not to say that Cronin doesn’t create interesting characters and situations, but he relies way too heavily on “X just somehow knew that he had to do Y next” in order to make sure that miraculous Amy gets where she’s going. (Also, magical Negroes who “just know” stuff give largely cryptic advice; the other people in the narrative who “just know” stuff are generally paler and generally get to take more direct action. If this trope is a dealbreaker, consider the deal broken.) Abigail Nussbaum is typically incisive in her review, though she doesn’t think much of King and I do and for once she's more positive about a book than I am.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Slow start, it took me 100 pages to get into the story, however, once it took off, it was amazing.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The Passage is everything it promised to be; a fast-paced thriller that will appear to readers everywhere. Although considered a "vampire" novel, it's not a vampire novel in the traditional sense. A government experiment gone wrong is a bit more accurate and it includes a host of well-drawn, memorable characters. Very similar to King's The Stand, but it has a completely different feel to it. I zipped through its 700+ pages and was sorry to see it end. However, The Passage is book 1 in a trilogy but we have to wait until 2012 for book 2 to hit the shelves. I would have given this book a 5 for the entertainment factor alone but because there were a few loose ends, I went with 4 stars instead. I suspect that the loose ends will be tied-up in book 2.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Epic in scope yet somehow quite intimate in its depiction of characters and relationships, The Passage is an apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic vampire novel in the vein of The Walking Dead—that series isn’t really about the zombies, and this book isn’t really about the vampires. The “virals,” as they’re called by the survivors of a government experiment gone wrong (is there any other kind?), appear rarely, and they are shadowy yet magnificent creatures, the leaders of whom (known as “The Twelve”) were convicted murderers before they were transformed into vicious creatures.The novel itself spans three distinct time periods—the “present” apocalyptic setting, the post-apocalyptic period set about 90 years later, and the distant future, from which we glimpse snippets of a character’s journal that is being studied at an academic conference. This last setting provides the story, which can sometimes appear rather grim, a sense of long-term hope.The plot is much too grand to summarize—suffice it to say that Cronin keeps it moving, and he knows when to let the action take center stage and when to slow things down and focus on the relationships. And there are lots of them, each carefully managed and distinct, primarily because the characters are so well drawn. In sweeping novels like The Passage, character development sometimes gets sacrificed, but Cronin is careful to cultivate vibrant, dynamic, and complex characters that evoke empathy and concern. Perhaps that’s the novel’s greatest achievement, and the most notable way in which it transcends its genre.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    I've had The Passage on my shelf for a few years now and with the TV series now being aired I had to pick the book up. At 766 pages it really is a bit daunting and needs to hold my interest.The first part of the book is amazing. A government experiment that goes wrong and causes an outbreak of Vampires. This part of the book for me was exciting and I had hopes and found 776 pages not so daunting after all. Yes the first part may have been a bit long in places with back stories of characters but not too much as to get bored.The book then changes into part two. The vampires still roam the earth 100 years later and a new set of characters. They live in a colony, safe but fighting the vampires. For me very much like my fave, The Walking Dead, think Alexandria and Hilltop. This part of the book is where I lost it. The excitement has gone and ploughing through another 200 pages with no interest and becoming bored. The characters I just dont get on with. I feel like I'm reading a totally different book by a different author. The daunting feeling has come back, I'm not interested anymore and can't face another 300 pages. I don't like giving up and I feel very frustrated as I was enjoying the book, wanted to finish it, wanted to love it. It's just not going to happen. One star rating is a bit mean because I enjoyed the first part but as a whole the book has been DNF and thats my own rating for books unfinished.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Its not often i find a book that i truly want to write a review on, but this one was just amazing.

    Its such a great story that compels you to keep reading until about halfway through then it drags before picking up again. That is expected though with a book that is as long as The Passage.

    Many things happened throughout the book though that kept me guessing. It wasn't the stereotypical plot lines and repetitive things. It was always something new to keep me reading it seemed. Not to say things didn't get repeated, but really it was just amazing to see how Cronin tied these characters together. It all came together in an unexpected way i felt, but in a good way that keeps me wanting to read the next book. And i want to read it ASAP!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Summary: The Passage is a sweeping story that takes place over a 100 years, chronicling the beginning of a vampire-esque plague that mostly wipes out humanity. It begins with the scientific origins of the plague, the outbreaks of plague throughout the US, and introduces the main post-apocalyptic characters and how they have survived through the years. When these characters meet a strange girl with a signal embedded under her skin telling them to bring her to Colorado, the real adventure begins.My thoughts: I have mixed feelings about this first book in the trilogy. I felt that it was a little longer than it had to be. The characters that it first introduced were given a lot of personality, and then they ended up not to be as important as you’d expect, given that most of the book took place post-apocalypse. On the other hand, the characterization did lead to a lot of personality for the book, which is part of why people love this book so much. (I am must a fan of brevity, I guess.) Overall, though, this book was fantastic. Though it had some slow points, I was mostly engrossed in the action the whole time, and very much want to read the second and third books to see how everything turns out.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This was so close to being a 5, but the reason it got 4 is solely due to moments of confusion/not being able to follow the story probably. The Passage is a completely different concept to anything I've read, especially recently. It's filled with questions and wondering and moments where I couldn't put the book down, because I just wanted to know what was going to happen next. Despite the large number of characters, I found they were easy to follow and easy to relate to. Each had their own personality and problems and demons they needed to work through. This book is a wonderful example of just what scientific meddling can do and may do in the future. A whole race has been wiped out almost because some people thought they could live forever. I think it sends a fantastic message/warning - to not meddle with nature. The world that Peter and the others now know is scary and dangerous, and yet extremely interesting. I'm not sure I've finished a book with such enthusiasm in such a long time. I am definitely looking forward to reading the next in the series!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A security breach at a secret U.S. government facility unleashes the monstrous product of a chilling military experiment.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I really really enjoyed this dystopian vampire apocalypse thriller, and immediately went to buy the second book of the trilogy upon finishing. I loved the characters and the unique twists Cronin gave to things. I wasn't too sure at first, I was concerned when the story shifted a bit that he had taken on too much, had different stories he wanted to tell and tried to combine them, but, I was enjoying what I was reading so I kept on, and it turned out I was wrong, he really was telling one story, it just had a few pieces that needed to come together. If you enjoy apocalyptic thrillers you ought to enjoy this.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    When I received The Passage by Justin Cronin, I have to admit that I felt a slight twinge of dread. 766 pages.....766!!!! I knew that this book better be a stellar work of fiction, or else the likelihood of me finishing it would be nil.This book did NOT disappoint! In fact, by page 765, I became almost desperate knowing this adventure was about to end. Thankfully, this is the first book in a planned trilogy (with the next book due to be released in 2012). The Passage is a novel about a post-apocalyptic world filled with virals (closely related to what we consider vampires) and sequestered clusters of survivors across the American continents. A quick synopsis of this book is virtually impossible since it spans decades and involves many different points of views. In a nutshell, it's about a military experiment to create human weapons through injecting a virus into 12 convicts that ends up going horribly wrong. The majority of the population is wiped out by the virals created by the Twelve, but holdouts remain, holding off the virals through primitive weaponry, fortresses, and bright lights that deter the creatures. The majority of the book focuses on The Colony, located in Southern California. When the batteries start getting dangerously low and The Colony is faced with impending darkness, a young girl named Amy makes her way into The Colony, altering the lives of all its inhabitants and setting events into motion that are the beginning of the virals' demise. Amy turns out to be the 13th victim infected by the Army for its experiment, but the effect it has on her body is one completely unlike the Twelve.I loved that every character's story was told, that they became key players in their own right. Cronin gave each their 15 minutes' of fame, in a way that flowed easily and added depth to an already-deep novel. This book could have ended numerous times and still have left me satisfied. It ended up feeling like a great story built on top of a great story built on top of another great story. My only disappointment was in the ending, as I was ready to keep going for 800 more pages. I was shocked to find that my frustration at the ending turned into admiration for the author at building up the anticipation to his next installment.I simply could not put this book down. I found myself dreaming of the storyline. It would not come as any suprise if this was turned into a major motion picture. Cronin has delivered a masterpiece. Stephen King fans will rave over it, and even those who don't particularly like sci-fi (count me as one) will have a hard time not adding this to their top-ten list of favorite books!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    OK, this one creeped me out. For several nights I had trouble getting myself out of bed to use the bathroom (they come out in the dark and they can sometimes be seen in the shadows). When I would put the book down, I was immediately drawn back to it for just one more chapter that turned into 5 or 6.

    There really is a lot more to this story than just a lot of violence and vampires. Think about the end of life as you know it and trying to continue on without knowing who else is still alive and will you still be here tomorrow!

    I liked this a LOT and would recommend it to just about anybody that likes a good suspense/mystery and of course, Vampires!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Not really my kind of book, It started off alright and I thought it would be a thriller, but developed into something else.A virus has escaped and is turning people into other beings, blood thirsty and nasty! Not my thing I am afraid, if your into this genre you will probably love it, but not me.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Whew, what a ride. At just shy of 800 pages this book is quite the tome, to the point that the hardcover edition actually gave me a sore wrist at times. That aside however, everything about this story is great. From the beginning where you start out with a troubled FBI agent, to the collapse of the United States and civilisation as we know it, to the cross country adventure a ninety odd years later in the aftermath where we learn even more about the world.From start to finish it was just really very good, continually changing story line - but not in a jarring or problematic to follow manner - excellent use of diary entries to give the presence of time, the way things slowly unfold rather than just being laid out at one time, giving an air of mystery to certain events and situations. All in all just an excellent story, am now ordering the following two books in the trilogy - that's how much I enjoyed it.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Liked it - so many recommended it to me, at first I read on faith. Some similarities to The Stand by S. King... and some to Dies the Fire by S.M. Stirling....
    I hear this is the first in a trilogy; it did leave you hanging, somewhat, but not in that "What?!?! Noooo~!' sort of cruel way.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I sure hope there is more to come. There are still a lot of things I want to know.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The US Army infects twelve condemned prisoners with a virus that produces a vampire-like condition in its victims. The resulting monstrosities then inevitably escape their confinement and go on a murderous rampage, resulting in the rapid end of human civilization (at least in the United States, and probably everywhere else as well). But the last experimental subject, a six-year-old girl, has a very different reaction to the infection; she is changed, but still human. She wanders off into the mountains in the wake of the massacre... and then, nearly a hundred years later, into a small colony of survivors' descendants.This isn't a bad book, but I'd hesitate to call it a good one, either. I do like the concept behind the creatures, which includes some clever nods to traditional vampire lore. But the story and the characters never really engaged me all that much, on any kind of emotional level. Cronin goes into great detail about his characters' lives and backstories and relationships and emotions, and so forth and so on, but he seldom makes me actually feel for any of them, and the post-apocalyptic world-building seemss a little flat and not always entirely convincing. Again, it's never really bad, but nearly 800 pages is a long time to spend with something that's decent, but just not really grabbing you. It did get more interesting, I think, in the last 300 pages or so, but by that point I was already feeling ready to be done with it. Although I'm still not, of course, as there are two more volumes and another 1,100 pages or so yet to go. I am intending to read the rest of the series, both because I already have all of it, and because the ending of this one was surprisingly effective in making me want to know what happens next. But I'm not sure I'm going to be in much of a hurry to get to them. Plowing my way through this one has kind of tired me out.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    i don't know what to say about this book. it is really long and there are alot of characters, some of whom i found irrelevant. the first half of the book was really good, and then a whole new bunch of characters were introduced and it took me a long time to get interested in them. in the end though, the book was pretty good. Cronin is a really good writer.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Amazing book!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Justin Cronin's "The Passage" reads like one story by three authors. Three entirely different authors. The story begins with an army bio-experiment going horribly wrong, eventually leading to widespread devastation. In the first part, you saw the grittiness of jail and felt the oppressive Texas summer heat. This can almost be a Cormac McCarthy novel or the first True Detective. Elements of magical realism are brought in with Sister Lacey and are used sparingly throughout the story. This story completely cuts off and another picks up quite a ways into the future. In the second portion, the story becomes a dystopian science-fiction tale with humanity's declining remnant living on and among the last civilization's debris. Mad Max with hordes of zombie Predators as the villains.This portion can be viewed as dry by some without much action, but I found the world-building elements interesting and well-imagined. THEN we have the third part. The third part. In the third part we have a Young Adult series grafted on to move the story forward with considerable action. Some of the original characters are brought back in and the loop is closed. While nowhere near as maudlin as other YA series like the Hunger Games or Twilight, and far better written, the Third Part doesn't have the same intensity as the first part despite containing most of the action. It should make a fine TV series, though. Part of my cynical nature says the book was written with either movie or TV in mind. Portions end a little too cleanly and Cronin becomes less likely to kill off or disappear any major characters.I enjoyed reading this and will likely continue on to the next in the series.