The Last Policeman & Countdown City

If you knew the world was going to end, how diligent would you be in continuing with your daily routines and responsibilities? Thus is the plot of Ben Winters's The Last Policeman. Our point of view character, Henry Palace, has just made detective in Concord, New Hampshire, when it is discovered that an asteroid is going to clobber Earth in nine months. And yet, he insists on finding who murdered the man he finds hanging by his belt in the restroom of the local McDonald's. As society collapses around him, he continues with his daily routines, attempts to corral his errant sister, starts a relationship with a woman he meets while investigating the murder, and tries not to take his fellow detectives' black humor too seriously. A wonderful character study, and a wonderful excuse to ask "what would I do if I was there?"

The immediate sequel to The Last Policeman, as society begins to break down, is Countdown City, in which Palace, now forcibly retired from the police force as local police departments are federalized, takes on a missing persons case. The husband of his childhood babysitter has gone missing, and he agrees to find him. He uncovers several plots larger than he expected and sees his sister off on her own last-ditch attempt to save the world. In the end, he is rescued from a tight corner by an old colleague from the Concord Police.

Through both books, the question kept coming up, "what would I do in those circumstances?" I'd like to believe that I'd carry on, as Henry does, doing what I could, continuing to discharge my responsibilities, even as those responsibilities changed with the world around me. To do otherwise would violate my sense of who I am, of what I'm about.

And now, World of Trouble, the third book in the series is due next week, on 7/15.  I'm very much looking forward to it.