The Last Policeman

What's the point in solving murders if we're all going to die? Detective Hank Palace has asked this question ever since asteroid 2011GV1 hovered into view. Several kilometers wide, it's on a collision course with planet Earth, with just six precious months until impact.

The Last Policeman presents a fascinating portrait of a pre-apocalyptic United States. Industry is grinding to a halt. Most people have abandoned their jobs. But not Hank Palace. As our story opens, he's investigating the latest suicide in a city that's full of suicides—only this one feels wrong. This one feels like homicide. And Palace is the only one who cares. What's the point in solving murders if we're all going to die?

The Last Policeman offers a story we've never read before: A police procedural set on the brink of an apocalypse. What would any of us do, what would we really do, if our days were numbered?

BEN H. WINTERS is a New York Times best-selling author (Quirk's Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters) and an Edgar Award nominee (for the HarperCollins YA novel The Secret Life of Ms. Finkelman). His most recent novel, Bedbugs (Quirk, 2011), was hailed by Vanity Fair as a "diabolical tale of paranoia." He lives in Indianapolis, IN.

• Category

  Entertainment

[CinematicBookTrailer]

You guys are doing good work with book trailers. You make them with style. Digging it.

[grimatongueworm]

Just read the Google Books excerpt, almost 4 chapters, and I was PISSED that it didn't go any farther. I'm ordering this puppy NOW.

[mayra]

It makes me think of a quote from the show "Angel": "If nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do."

[Gyude Johnson]

I always thought this question was interesting. The reason being, everyone is going to die regardless (eventually) so what difference should it make knowing when? But it does make a difference... but why?

[lchardison]

I picked up the advance reader's copy at BEA & got it signed by the author. Not far into it yet but I'm loving it. It really makes me think about what I would do if the earth only had a few months left. Thanks Quirk Books for another awesome read!