The Last Policeman

Paperback, 336 pages

Published May 13, 2013 by Quirk Books.

ISBN:: 978-1-59474-674-1

(1 review)

What’s the point in solving murders if we’re all going to die soon, anyway?

Detective Hank Palace has faced this question ever since asteroid 2011GV1 hovered into view. There’s no chance left. No hope. Just six precious months until impact.

The Last Policeman presents a fascinating portrait of a pre-apocalyptic United States. The economy spirals downward while crops rot in the fields. Churches and synagogues are packed. People all over the world are walking off the job—but not Hank Palace. He’s investigating a death by hanging in a city that sees a dozen suicides every week—except this one feels suspicious, and Palace is the only cop who cares.

The first in a trilogy, The Last Policeman offers a mystery set on the brink of an apocalypse. As Palace’s investigation plays out under the shadow of 2011GV1, we’re confronted by hard questions way beyond “whodunit.” What basis does civilization rest upon? …

What’s the point in solving murders if we’re all going to die soon, anyway?

Detective Hank Palace has faced this question ever since asteroid 2011GV1 hovered into view. There’s no chance left. No hope. Just six precious months until impact.

The Last Policeman presents a fascinating portrait of a pre-apocalyptic United States. The economy spirals downward while crops rot in the fields. Churches and synagogues are packed. People all over the world are walking off the job—but not Hank Palace. He’s investigating a death by hanging in a city that sees a dozen suicides every week—except this one feels suspicious, and Palace is the only cop who cares.

The first in a trilogy, The Last Policeman offers a mystery set on the brink of an apocalypse. As Palace’s investigation plays out under the shadow of 2011GV1, we’re confronted by hard questions way beyond “whodunit.” What basis does civilization rest upon? What is life worth? What would any of us do, what would we really do, if our days were numbered?

2 editions

dare reviewed The Last Policeman: A Novel by Ben H. Winters

Review of 'The Last Policeman: A Novel' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

This book gave me nightmares, a first in fifteen years or so. The Last Policeman is essentially a bleak and relentless story about waiting for the end of the world. It's essentially asking "what's the point" and not pretending to provide any easy answers. When total destruction looms in a few months, and there's nothing you can do to affect any of it, no sane hope that it will be miraculously averted, what does one crime matter? What does anything matter?

If the novel was about existential navel-gazing. it would be unreadable. With a proactive and symphatetic protagonist who wants to survive despite everything, and who still wants to act like a human being, Last Policeman is chilling in its believability. It got under my skin in a way I hardly thought possible. I have no idea if the book was really that good or it was just me.