Countdown City (Last Policeman Trilogy): The Last Policeman Book II: 2 (The Last Policeman Trilogy)

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

As with the first Hank Palace novel (this is volume 2 of a projected trilogy), the mystery element is strong, and the strange, preapocalyptic world is 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

A genre-defying blend of crime writing and science fiction. -Alexandra Alter, The New York Times

The Last Policeman books offer an appealing hybrid of the best of science fiction and crime fiction. --The Washington Post

In his acclaimed Last Policeman trilogy, Masters 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

Sharp, funny, and deeply wise. --Slate.com

Darkly intriguing. --Discover

I'm in the middle of it and can't put the dang thing down. --USA Today's Pop Candy

Ben Winters makes noir mystery even darker: his latest novel sets a despondent detective on a suspicious suicide case--while an asteroid hurtles toward earth. --Wired.com

In his Last Policeman trilogy, for which he won both the Edgar Award and the Philip K. Dick Award, Winters took a standard science fiction trope -- the final months before an asteroid slams into Earth -- and mixed it with some of the conventions of the detective novel, imbuing his apocalyptic scenario with an extra measure of urgency and poignancy. --The San Francisco Chronicle

Winters's writing is funny, surprisingly tender, and thoroughly human. --Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine

Winters constructs a sturdy, functional, entertaining page-turner. --Greg Cook, WBUR.org

I'm eager to read the other books, and expect that they'll keep me as enthralled as the first one did. --Mark Frauenfedler, Boing Boing

Normally, only Stephen King and Dean Koontz can suck me into a book and not release their stranglehold until I, exhausted from lack of sleep, have turned the last page. Now [Ben Winters] has joined their ranks...The Last Policeman is extraordinary--as well as brilliant, surprising, and, considering the circumstances, oddly uplifting. --Mystery Scene

The Last Policeman succeeds both as a mystery, with a quirky detective and an intriguing whodunit, and as a piece of apocalyptic speculative fiction. That's good news. The even better news is that this novel is supposed to be the first of a planned trilogy, with each case occurring closer to the moment when, as Henry repeatedly notes, 'Bam!' And that is something we can anticipate with a good feeling. --Sacramento News & Review

Full of compelling twists, likable characters, and a sad beauty, The Last Policeman is a gem. --San Francisco Book Review

The best genre fiction holds a mirror up to society while also providing edge-of-the-seat excitement, and The Last Policeman did that and more. --Las Vegas City Life

This is a book that asks big questions about civilization, community, desperation and hope. --io9.com