Cronin doesn’t give readers due credit

*Editor's note: This review contains a spoiler.*

When most adults go to a small child's birthday party, they think about taking gifts or helping with the pulled pork sandwiches.

They do not generally think: If vampires were to descend, where could we hide?

So heed this warning: Reading Justin Cronin's new novel “The Twelve” will lead you to have these thoughts.

“The Twelve” continues the plot laid out in Cronin's first book, “The Passage.” In the first of what will be a three-part series, 12 death row inmates are injected with a virus as part of a government experiment. The virus turns them into vampires, they escape and wreak havoc.

“The Twelve,” the second of the series, continues the story, moving from the first moments of the disaster to nearly 100 years in the future. With a world as rich and complicated as the one Cronin constructs, it's crucial that we have expertly drawn characters to serve as our guides. And we do: Kittridge, a man making his last stand in Denver; April, a young girl hoping to protect her brother; and Danny, the autistic bus driver charged with taking them to safety.

But before we reach page 200 of a 500-plus page book, all three of these characters are killed. And we are rushed off to another time period with another set of characters, then still another time period and another set of characters. And while some characters come and go, most do not and we are left to navigate this new world (and rotating time periods) on our own.

While “The Twelve” is full of perfectly timed explosions and characters careening to safety on elevator cables, all this action comes at the sacrifice of character development - making Cronin come off as condescending to his readers. Yes, we readers of genre fiction like a swift plot and action sequences, but we also like fully developed characters and emotional connections. Genre fiction may not win Pulitzers, but that doesn't mean it has to be poorly written, especially since Cronin is a capable writer. Before turning to genre fiction, he was a critical darling, receiving the PEN/Hemingway and other literary accolades. Cronin should consider using his award-winning writing style in his genre fiction. Readers can handle it.