Countdown City: The Last Policeman Book II

Description

Set three months before the deadly asteroid 2011GV1 is due to hit Earth, this Last Policeman sequel chronicles the further adventures of Hank Palace. The Concord Police Department is now operating under the auspices of the U.S. Justice Department, and Hank is out of a job - until he's hired by a business tycoon to help find the man's estranged son. Hank's search leads him to a visibly collapsing East Coast landscape where anti-immigrant militia patrol the shores, fending off droves of people fleeing the impact zone of the asteroid. And it isn't long before Hank's missing-person case turns into a murder investigation. But the Last Policeman sequel asks questions well beyond whodunit. What do we as human beings owe to one another? And what does it mean to be civilized when civilization is collapsing all around you?

Ben H. Wintersis an Edgar Award nominee and a New York Times best-selling author. His most recent novel, Bedbugs, was hailed by Vanity Fair as a "diabolical tale of paranoia." He lives in Indianapolis, Indiana.

"It's funny, it's thrilling, it's crazy, it's interesting."-Jenna Bush Hager, TODAY with Hoda & Jenna "I always appreciate novels that have new and interesting approaches to traditional genres, and Ben H. Winters' two novels featuring Hank Palace fill the bill."-Nancy Pearl, NPR "Winters is brilliant in conveying the ways in which people look for their best impulses but often end up as the victims of other people's most base instincts."-Toronto Star "Don't miss this series!"-Sci Fi Magazine "Winters is a deft storyteller who moves his novel effortlessly from its intriguing setup to a thrilling, shattering conclusion."-Los Angeles Review of Books "One of the best mysteries I've read in such a long time."-Nancy Pearl, KUOW "Winters's work shines."-Locus "The 'don't lose hope' ending is slam bang, setting us up for the 'final-final' installment."-Florida Times-Union "A precise, calendar-driven doom casts a shadow over the series, a planet-killer asteroid that the Earth can't duck, making this an existential policier."-The Sunbreak "A thrilling and contagious read."-Fayetteville Flyer "Gripping."-The Free Lance-Star "Highly imaginative and also very plausible-it's easy to think that the impending end of the world might feel very much like this. Genre mash-up master Winters is at it again."-Booklist "Through it all Palace remains a likeable hero for end times."-PublishersWeekly.com Praise for The Last Policeman Winner of the 2013 Edgar (R) Award Winner for Best Paperback Original One of Slate's Best Books of 2012 "[The] weird, beautiful, unapologetically apocalyptic Last Policeman trilogy is one of my favorite mystery series."-John Green, author of The Fault in Our Stars and Paper Towns "Winters's apocalyptic detective story contains an earth-shattering element of science fiction that lifts it beyond a typical procedural."-New York Times Book Review "An appealing hybrid of the best of science fiction and crime fiction."-The Washington Post "In his acclaimed Last Policeman trilogy, Winters showed off his mastery of edgy, sardonic wit - there's nothing like an asteroid speeding toward Earth to bring out the black humor in people."-Newsday