Apocalypse reapocalypses in this horror-postapocalypse trilogy finale, as life returns to a kind of survivable idyll with the destruction of the Twelve and their Virals. But Patient Zero lurks in New York, laying his plans and basically being completely insane. Alicia stays with him as part of an ill-advised deal; Amy hides from him; Peter is in charge of civilisation and Micheal fixes a big boat because he knows what's coming.

There were a few rather dull and long bits in this - Zero's life story is like something out of a University Novel, the ending drags on a bit and there's some dodgy character bits that make quite a few of the cast rather unlikable - accepting that at some point very soon most of surviving humanity will be wiped out and that's a bummer but we won't even try to warn anyone just carry on with our boat project which will save a fraction of them is a hard one to finesse and remain sympathetic. The rest of the characters forgive them way too easily, mostly because the author is invested in them being so awesome.

STILL, otherwise there's a decent build-up and set-up when things kick off Cronin goes all out and the action is fast and brutal and well-orchestrated and nasty. I didn't buy into some of the metaphysical stuff and the romances could get soggy at times (not always, though) and the bad guy's psychodrama - I suppose ultimately we were supposed to find him pathetic, but I felt a lot of the overall structure of the trilogy really rested on his whims. Did that work? Well, I didn't hate it or anything but I raised my eyebrows a few times, for whatever that's worth.