Book: The Last Policeman

The earth is going to be destroyed. So why bother with anything if it's all about to turn to dust?

That seems to be the premise of The Last Policeman, a fairly standard detective novel with an interesting twist to its setting.  Detective Henry Palace--just recently promoted from beat cop--gets a suicide case in a world where an increasing number of people are choosing to kill themselves now that scientist's have confirmed the inevitable impact of a giant asteroid that will almost certainly destroy nearly all life on earth. But something about this case seems strange to Palace, and even as everyone around him wonders why he bothers, he starts to investigate whether there's more to this suicide than just a suicide.

The novel excels as author Ben Winters catalogs the disintegration and the reactions of the world around him--from those who turn to sex, drugs, and violence as a means of coping, to those who battle depression, to those who, like Palace, seem to throw themselves even more obsessively into the minutiae of their lives. All of these reactions seem legitimate in the face of impending obliteration, and that question of just how I would react is one I asked myself repeatedly as I read. At what point to you pack it all in and do the things you've always wanted to do but never thought you could--from hang-gliding to travelling the world--or is that abandonment of one's life in itself a desperate and pathetic act. Is Palace heroic for his commitment to his job as a cop, or is he pathetic for it?

Winters hasn't really broken much new ground with this novel, but that doesn't stop it from being a short, fun, and entertaining read, and he does put pieces together in new and different ways. There are twists and turns in the case--some expected, some not--and it was enough that I will be happy to tune in for the next installment of the planned pre-apocalyptic trilogy. As long as he keeps things moving the way he does in this novel, and as long as Palace continues to develop as an interesting protagonist, I think there is a lot of promise that the series will continue to be as compelling and readable as this first installment was.

Grade: B