World of Trouble: The Last Policeman Book III: 3 (The Last Policeman Trilogy)

Winters, a major talent, gives us the best realized world on the verge of annihilation that this reviewer has seen since Cormac McCarthy. --Sci Fi Magazine

Winters' style is a slow burn....His cadence is a steady beat rather than a roller coaster, and his words sparing and simple. They will stay with you. --William O'Connor, The Daily Beast

World of Trouble is a page turner, a book that is riveting and humane, suspenseful rather than frenetic, and moving rather than depressing; and the key to it all is our guide trough this crumbling world. Palace is a brilliant creation, the perfect hero for our eschatological age. --Tor.com

Riveting entertainment. --The A.V. Club

Winters' World of Trouble is more than a shining example of how to write about the apocalypse--it's one of the most well-written mysteries of any era...World of Trouble is a book you don't want to miss. --Paste

That Winters can paint for us a world that is so bared-boned, raw and honest is why this is one of the best books of the year so far. --The Cleveland Plain Dealer

When the trilogy races toward the end (in more than one way), you find yourself with a spark of hope for the human race, even in just spirit and soul. --GeekMom

This is quality writing. --Cape Cod Times

World of Trouble demonstrates a greater confidence in the storytelling, richer supporting characters, and an ending that I wanted to both race toward and hold off as long as possible. --Indianapolis Business Journal

Winters has done an excellent job. --McClatchy

It is impossible not to love Hank and his need to try to do the right thing all the time. The bleak premise of this series could be too much, but, instead, it gives a certain clarity to the action of people who become their most real selves when the end of the world arrives. --Library Journal

As fascinating as Winters' imagined societal breakdown can be, it's his attention to human connections--heartfelt, heroic and lethal--that really make this trilogy worth reading. --Kirkus

A fine conclusion to a unique and compelling trilogy. --Booklist

Praise for Countdown City

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

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