- Series: Last Policeman (Book 3)
- Paperback: 320 pages
- Publisher: Quirk Books (July 15, 2014)
- ISBN: 978159474685
- Source: Publisher
*Warning: This is a review for the third book in a trilogy. There will be spoilers in this review, so if you have not read the previous two books please do not continue.*
The clock is ticking away; the asteroid on a path to Earth is getting closer. The end is imminent. Everyone has responded to the devastating reality in a different way: committing crime, stealing in order to get supplies to survive the last few days, and, in many cases, ending their own lives so they didn’t have to face the horrific end. Detective Hank Palace could be doing what everyone else is, settling down to ride out his last few days on Earth. Instead, he continues his search for his sister, Nico. The last he heard, she’d joined a group that apparently had a solution to destroy the asteroid before it struck the planet.
His search takes him to an abandoned police station in Ohio. His sidekicks on this journey are his ever faithful dog, Houdini, and Cortez, a former criminal. At the police station it seems as if the world has already ceased to function. Officers either fled their posts when they heard news of the asteroid or were killed protecting what modicum of society still existed. There, they find a young woman on the brink of death, her throat slit in a failed attempt at her life. Palace knows his sister is some how tied to this police station. As they wait for the young woman to regain consciousness, they discover evidence that may indicate Nico and her group are buried in a bunker beneath the police station. Time is not their friend. While Palace may not be able to stop the end of life as they know it, but when the end does come he wants to be with Nico.
What Place and Cortez discover, however, is more haunting and chilling than they could have imagined.
It goes without saying that this novel is bleak. The end of the world is imminent, nothing can be done to stop it. Society as we know it has already ceased to exist, people robbing and killing one another to scrape together supplies to ride out to the end. There is no time for fluff in this storytelling; Winters shells it out to readers without sugar-coating it. No happy rainbows or butterflies; the world is ending. Yet rather than being depressing, I found myself to be moved emotionally by Palace’s journey to find his sister.
What makes this novel, and the entire trilogy, stand out as a whole is the superb storytelling. Winters is a genius; mixing dry humor and bits of hope by way of Palace’s character. Although we know the world is ending, readers will root for him, crossing our fingers in hope that he will track down Nico before the asteroid hits. As Winters ties together loose ends, wrapping up story lines and answering questions that came about in the previous books, readers are inundated with revelation after revelation, leaving one in a stunned silence until they can fully comprehend what they just read.
As I read, I was wary of how the book was going to end. I must say, I couldn’t have imagined it any other way. A truly expert piece of storytelling, this trilogy is a must-read. While I’m sad that it has come to a conclusion, I can’t wait to pick up the first book and start it over again, knowing now what I didn’t know then. Highly, highly recommended.
Check out my reviews of the first two books in the trilogy:
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