BOOK REVIEW: The Last Policeman Trilogy by Ben H. Winters

Ben H. Winters is the author of The Last Policeman trilogy. I had seen mentions of the series for years on Goodreads (via automated recommendations) and was intrigued by the premise: a police procedural set in the context of the imminent destruction of the Earth by an approaching asteroid. As you know, my two favorite genres are speculative fiction and mystery, so this would be an example of a rare cross-genre hybrid. Sadly, most mystery-SF mashups tend to slight one of the genres and have generally left me feeling unsatisfied or somewhat disappointed.

Disappointing was my overall evaluation of another well-known mystery-SF hybrid trilogy, Jo Walton's Small Change books (Farthing, Ha'Penny and Half a Crown). These are a series of British murder mysteries set in an alternative history where Great Britain appeases Germany and thus Hitler's Third Reich is not defeated. Ultimately, I felt that the Small Change books, did not succeed as speculative fiction or police/thrillers, but were more focussed on making cogent and compelling commentaries on the slippery slope of unchecked anti-Semitism and seductiveness of fascism.

Happily disappointing was not a word I would associate with any of The Last Policeman books: The Last Policeman, Countdown City and World of Trouble. The author does an excellent job of effectively putting the reader in the situation where you really believe that you are living in a modern America that has an execution date of October 3, 2012 (less than 6 months away when we begin the first book). After ingesting so many post-apocalyptic works recently (like AMC's The Walking Dead, Neal Stephenson's Seveneves, George Miller's Mad Max Fury Road, Wesley Chu's Time Salvager) it was a thrilling revelation to discover that the time period right before an apocalyptic event is also ripe with artistic possibility and compelling melodrama. (I think this was why people like myself were so annoyed and frustrated with AMC's Fear The Walking Dead which was billed as a prequel to AMC's The Walking Dead but then basically skipped depicting any salient details of how the zombie apocalypse ended up destroying civilization in Southern California.)

So, in addition to providing a compelling science fiction setting with the drip-drip inclusion of little details that engulf the reader with feelings of verisimilitude, Winters does not skimp the mystery/police procedural aspects of these SF-mystery hybrids.

THE LAST POLICEMAN
The main character is Hank Palace, a relatively inexperienced police patrolman in Concord, New Hampshire who has just landed his first dead body as a police detective (which he was promoted to only because so many police officers and other professionals are walking away from their jobs to spend their last 6 months on earth crossing items off their bucket lists instead of clocking in at a job which seems irrelevant when life as we know it will end in the foreseeable future).

THE LAST POLICEMAN

Hank is an orphan, and has wanted to be a police officer ever since his mother was murdered when he was about 13 which is a little more than a decade ago. Even though the body presents as just another suicide (considering the fin du monde setting, the suicide rate has been steadily rising) Palace is troubled by certain details (the victim, Peter Zell, was an insurance adjuster who used an expensive belt to hang himself in the bathroom of a MacDonald's). The first question we have to figure out as readers is does Hank just really want this suicide to be a murder to give his own decision to continue working meaning or is this really a murder? And what would cause someone to murder someone and disguise it as a suicide when everyone is going to die soon when the asteroid hits?

Hank doggedly follows the available clues which leads him to pursue a theory of the death involving insurance fraud and so he goes to Zell's place of business. There, he questions Zell's co-workers, including Naomi Eddes, a woman with a shaved head who was friendly with Zell and whom Hank appears to be attracted to as she reminds him of his former girlfriend. Hank also attempts to question Zell's sister but she appears to be avoiding him by refusing to call him back. As Hank learns more he discovers that Zell was starting to experiment with addictive drugs (OxyContin, etc) several months before he died. Even though I was able to solve the mystery of who killed Peter Zell before it was revealed the story is still compelling as we learn more about Hank's life (he has a sister named Nico who is convinced that the government has a secret plan to save humanity when the asteroid hits), he gains a pet dog and we get further glimpses of the many ways that society begins to fray and disintegrate as the asteroid gets closer and closer.

Title: The Last Policeman (The Last Policeman Trilogy, Book 1).
Author: Ben H. Winters.
Paperback: 336 pages.
Publisher: Quirk Books.
Date Published: July 10, 2012.
Date Read: November 28, 2015.

GOODREADS RATING: *****.

OVERALL GRADE: A- (4.16/4.0).

PLOT: A.
IMAGERY: A.
IMPACT: A+.
WRITING: A+.

COUNTDOWN CITY
As Countdown City begins, Hank has been (forcibly) retired from the Concord Police Department as local law enforcement has been superseded by the federal Justice Department.

COUNTDOWN CITY

There are now just 11 weeks until the asteroid hits and even though the world knows the (relatively remote) location of where it will hit, the ramifications of the increased imminence of the end of the world has resulted in an almost complete loss of regular order (there is no phones or internet or traffic and electricity is intermittent). Riots and anarchy are widely expected but no one is sure when it will start (or what will set it off). Into this disturbing setting, Hank is asked by a family friend to find her missing husband Brett, and even though Hank is no longer a cop, he takes the case as a favor to his former babysitter Martha. Now it becomes even more questionable that Hank would risk his own life to track down someone who has disappeared, at a  time, when even the people he knows quite well are simply taking off for the carnal pleasures of New Orleans. We as the reader start to realize that Hank is really using his self-assigned responsibility as distraction (or obsession) to prevent him from thinking about the state of the world and processing his own thoughts and feelings about the end of the world.

This middle book of the trilogy is less successful overall than the first but there are some aspects of Countdown City which are improved over the first. Primary among these is the inclusion of Hank's dog, a bichon frise named Houdini. Hank and Houdini are basically inseparable in the second book and it is fun to see their interactions. Another big difference in the second book is the greater presence of Hank's sister Nico. Hank enlists his sisters assistance in order to gain safe passage and entry to the University of New Hampshire which has been turned into an anarchistic utopia run by former UNH students and faculty called the Free Republic of New Hampshire. Brett's trail leads there because a girl he had a relationship with is known to be a big whig in the Free Republic.

Amazingly, Hank is able to trace down Brett and discover the truth of why he left Martha but things do not end well for either Hank or Brett as they encounter a sniper with deadly aim. Hank manages to get back to Concord to see Martha again and the learn the ultimate truth about her husband's disappearance just in time to witness the final collapse of the city into looting and mayhem. Hank and Houdini are whisked to safety by a unlikely source as Nico reveals (right before she disappears in a military helicopter) that she is part of an organization that is trying to use a nuclear weapon to try and deflect the asteroid and save humanity.

Title: Countdown City (The Last Policeman Trilogy, Book 2).
Author: Ben H. Winters.
Paperback: 320 pages.
Publisher: Quirk Books.
Date Published: July 16, 2013.
Date Read: November 28, 2015.

GOODREADS RATING: ****.

OVERALL GRADE: A- (4.0/4.0).

PLOT: A.
IMAGERY: A.
IMPACT: A.
WRITING: A.

WORLD OF TROUBLE
As World of Trouble begins there are now just over a dozen days before the asteroid is going to collide with the Earth and most likely extinguish all life on the planet. Our hero, Hank Palace, is of course obsessed with solving one more mystery instead of simply counting his blessings that he has the opportunity to live out his final days before the apocalypse in relative safety and comfort. Instead Hank (with Houdini in tow) has traveled hundreds of miles to Ohio with a guy he doesn't (and shouldn't) trust to try and track down his sister Nico, who when we last saw her had access to a military helicopter and was working with a group to deploy a nuclear weapon to prevent the asteroid from completing its genocidal trajectory.

By recounting the details of Hank's journey from Western Massachusetts to Ohio, the author is able to show us the many different ways civilization can end. Hank sees the results of double suicides on porches, town burned to the ground, and (very rarely) towns where the populace has banded together to keep everyone relatively safe and well-fed. Money is now completely useless but bottled water (or even snacks from old vending machines) are precious beyond measure. People are literally counting the number of meals before the end of the world.

Incredibly (and this does stretch credulity to the point of snapping) Hank is able to find his sister as well as a murderous crime scene that he needs to use his best detective skills to determine who did what to whom. One last mystery to solve before all life ceases to exist. These books were also compelling to me because of the extremely well-crafted nature of the writing. This following passage struck me so profoundly I recorded it as a status update on Goodreads:

It's not just a person's present that dies when they die, when they are murdered or drowned or a giant rock falls on their head. It's the past, too, all the memories that belonged only to them, the things they thought and never said. And all those possible futures, all the ways that life might have turned out. Past and present and future all burn up together like a bundle of sticks.

Winter, apparently calls his books "existential detective novels" and in this third book this focus of the book becomes heartbreakingly central to its plot as the number of days that civilization will exist dwindles to zero. If there are literally a handful of days left  to live, how would you spend them? I'm pretty sure that I would not make the same decisions as Hank Palace, but I can't deny that the entire trilogy had an emotionally resonant impact on me. Both the mystery and the speculative aspects of the story were incredibly well-balanced throughout the entire series and will be attractive to fans of both. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Title: World of Trouble (The Last Policeman Trilogy, Book 3).
Author: Ben H. Winters.
Paperback: 320 pages.
Publisher: Quirk Books.
Date Published: July 15, 2014.
Date Read: November 29, 2015.

GOODREADS RATING: *****.

OVERALL GRADE: A- (4.16/4.0).

PLOT: A+.
IMAGERY: A.
IMPACT: A+.
WRITING: A.