The Last Policeman

A great who done it, in an interesting setting. A life-ending asteroid is plunging toward Earth, but his detective stays on the case of a suicide that doesn't seem right to him. ( )

This book would be a police procedural, but since the world is about to end when an asteroid collides with Earth in six months, newly elevated police detective Henry Palace is essentially operating as a private detective. Henry suspects that the assumed suicide of an insurance actuary was a murder. However, given the state of the world no one but Henry is feeling really inspired to investigate crimes. Henry's sister also enlists his aid in tracking down her missing husband. What you have is a crime story with something really interesting going on in the background. The author used the same formula in "Underground Airlines", which was one of my favorite books this year, so the formula seems to be working for him so far.

This is the first book of a trilogy and accordingly there are lots of loose ends at the conclusion of this book. However the murder mystery does appear to be solved. I usually find that authors stretch the story too thin when they write trilogies and that the second books, in particular, tend to be placeholders, but I'm hoping for the best with this one. This was a very entertaining book and a quick read and I will definitely read the next book. ( )

If there was an asteroid heading for Earth, and you knew it was going to cause mass extinctions and probably kill you, how would you spend the last months of your life? Would you carry on with your duties? Are there some things still worth fighting for, even though death for almost everyone is close at hand?

Scenario:

The stock market have collapsed.
World trade has slowed. Who wants to pump oil when they only have a few more days to live?
People tend to do what they want, money is not so much of a motivation.
Murder, suicide and sexual crimes are all up, so is police brutality.

This book forces you to think about whether there are some abstract concepts that matter. In this situation, there won't be many left that will know if you stood up for principles or how you died. If no one will know, and you'll be dead, does justice really matter? It's an angle I'd never thought of before I read the book. Ben Winters does a brilliant job with this his story. There’s the usual chasing down blind alleys. What did it for me was the fact that there was a larger plot, about humanity. Winters is skilled in doling out the bits and pieces without belaboring the point that there's an asteroid on its way. Maia is always there, but in the unspoken background. So I suppose, if Winters were the type to hit a reader over the head with things, this could have been an even more depressing book than it was.

For me the book felt depressing and claustrophobic, but to describe the book in just two word really sells it short. This was a profoundly affecting read. ( )

The coming asteroid end-of-the-world transforms a police procedural into something rather wonderful and poignant. ( )

I'm still not sure I know what happened, but here's the jist of it. Hank Palace is a policeman, and an asteroid is going to crash into Planet Earth somewhere, sometime soon. Everyone's going a little cookoo, what's the point of behaving if the apocalypse is any day now? But Hank finds a dead body that looks a little too much like a suicide, and he starts investigating. And he discovers that some people are being sent up to the moon, rescued by the U.S. government, and some people are being killed (by the Government? I couldn't tell) and it's being staged to look like a suicide by the insurance companies, so they don't have to pay out. But why? Because they're going just as broke as everybody else.

The thing is, I'm still not sure I care that I don't understand. This was a great thrill ride, and I enjoyed reading it. ( )