This is the end – only whose and are you sure? – review of “City of Mirrors” in the third volume of the “Passage” trilogy by Justin Cronin

After all, it’s over

Before the actual plot of the novel, there is a list of characters, a fragment of the Book of the Twelve, introduced by the author and written in a biblical style, a story about the struggle of the heroes of the trilogy against virols, i.e. people infected with a virus that turns them into something resembling vampires. This epidemic spread across North America, and as a result, global bodies decided to quarantine the entire continent. After over a hundred years, a handful of heroes managed to defeat the Twelve, a group of extremely powerful virols. And it happened thanks to Amy, the Girl from Nowhere. After the victory, she was not heard of, and the survivors of the Republic of Texas set about rebuilding the old world, at least to some extent. The action of the third volume takes place twenty-one years after the disappearance of the virola. However, not everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Lucius Greer and gangster Michael Fisher sense that another vortex cataclysm is coming,

Mirror, mirror …

The title City of Mirrors, by no means without glass houses, is presented on the cover – ruined, in an orange glow, somewhat reminiscent of a fire glow, and with the characteristic Empire State Building. It is New York, as one can guess from this description, that constitutes the “heart of darkness” of the world after the (theoretical) victory over the virols. The mystery at first may be the presence of mirrors in the title, but in the post-apocalyptic world, finding such a smooth surface is quite a challenge. Of course, Justin Cronin explains this issue and at the same time in an interesting way interprets the old folk way of dealing with bloodsucking monsters.

Internal changes, or sometimes their lack

In the entire trilogy, and in particular in the City of Mirrors , the stories of changes taking place in a person are well described in my opinion, especially the key ones – I do not mean the different eating habits of the infected. For example, Sara Fisher, also known as the Healer, has become more of an initiative figure in this volume. In turn, Alicia Donadio, captivity in Iowa and the transformation into a virol, slowly led to the edge of mental endurance, and the heroine enters the third installment of the trilogy, filled with a desire for revenge. As you can guess, they will be disastrous.

The leader, however, from a slightly psychological point of view, is the chapter Retrospection, which is a “confession” by Tim Fanning, known as Zero, the first virol. The author accurately presented a strange and quite disturbing story about ambition, the dark sides of human nature, dormant in all of us, and (of course) unhappy love.

Already seen

It can be said that the City of Mirrors   serves the reader in two ways. On the one hand, there is the aforementioned deadly virus theme that turns people into beasts, although it is implemented differently than, for example, in the series about extremely active dead people. On the other hand, the action of the third volume of Crossings uses the same plot pattern as the previous ones. At first, the situation is boring, but the main problem of The Evil One is eliminated and replaced with an even more evil and more powerful one. In this case, it was Zero, the first viral.

Summary

I believe that the City of Mirrors , despite a few aspects that I did not like, is a great ending after a long and painful (for heroes, not the reader) journey. The author managed to close the most important threads and show the outside world, untouched by the plague of vampires. In particular, in my opinion, it perfectly presents the description of the genesis of the cataclysm, i.e. a short autobiography-confession by Fanning.