The Last Policeman

The Last Policeman, Book 1

By: Ben H. Winters

Narrated by: Peter Berkrot

Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins

Publisher's summary

As Seen on Today with Hoda & Jenna

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

Winner of the 2013 Edgar® Award for Best Paperback Original!

What’s the point in solving murders if we’re all going to die soon, anyway?

Detective Hank Palace has faced this question ever since asteroid 2011GV1 hovered into view. There’s no chance left. No hope. Just six precious months until impact.

The economy spirals downward while crops rot in the fields. Churches and synagogues are packed. People all over the world are walking off the job—but not Hank Palace. He’s investigating a death by hanging in a city that sees a dozen suicides every week—except this one feels suspicious, and Palace is the only cop who cares.

The first in a trilogy, The Last Policeman offers a mystery set on the brink of an apocalypse. As Palace’s investigation plays out under the shadow of 2011GV1, we’re confronted by hard questions way beyond “whodunit.” What basis does civilization rest upon? What is life worth? What would any of us do, what would we really do, if our days were numbered?

©2012 Ben H. Winters (P)2012 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

More police procedural than scifi

More of a police procedural than a scifi novel, this book didn’t quite grab me until the very end, when there was a twist that convinced me I should continue on to read the next book in the series.

[I listened to this as an audio book read by Peter Berkrot. I thought he sounded a bit older than the age of the main character, but other than that did a good job.]

Not entertaining but interesting enough.

A slightly above average detective murder mystery.

It honestly felt so similar to any other murder mystery except for an added sense of impending doom for everyone involved. This added a tad bit more of flavor the what you'd typically get delivered in this kind of story.

In the back of my mind I was on the border of 'getting it' and also understanding how awfully pointless it must all feel.

The part I get is wanting to try your best to follow your dreams to become a detective and do one last good job before the world ends. It's understandable to try and keep going as if nothing in the world is going to change as a way to cope.

It makes for a interesting concept and story of trying to understand all of this from the percpective of someone who is trying to deal in a world that's about to end anyways. I found it interesting. It was just interesting.

Entertaining it was not.

I thought the whole murder mystery consistently felt too small scale, too petty in comparison to what's coming, too unimportant. Sure maintaining humanity is important but there's the end of the world to worry about that outweighs the small scale crimes going on to someone who doesn't matter.

I was hoping that some twist or whatever might reveal it all to be something more then what it's initially appearing to be.... This never happens. It consistently and throughout was small scale and somewhat felt like a waste of my time.

I appreciate how interesting it was and that it wrapped up the storyline without any cliffhangers. but

The only cliffhanger you get has more to do with the overall world building and a suggested plot that will be deep dived later on. Unfortunately I don't trust that this story is going to respect my time enough for me to even fathom getting the 2nd book to see what happens next.

Not quite what you might expect

An interesting mix of genres. Part police procedural, part science fiction, part dramatic dystopian intrigue.

Gripping, Realistic, Moving and Entertaining!

As a police sergeant in a suburb of a large city, I approached this book like I find myself with most murder mysteries, quite tentative but hoping for a complicated, clever storyline with good character development. This read easily met those criteria but really hit home with a well done pre-apocalyptic setting.

The Last Policeman is written from the perspective of a very realistic main character, Detective Hank Palace, a “down to earth” police officer who still cares to do an already thankless job in the worst of times.

The author did an excellent job of adjusting the readers mindset to new and different types of motives, drives, ways of being and thought processes which had an effect on, not only each character within the story, but all of society. The setting of “impending doom” was only a backdrop to the overall story and, refreshingly, never took off as the actual problem to solve. Interpersonal and work relationships were very entertaining and emotionally engaging as well.

The audio quality was good and the narration was done well.

Bearable....

What did you like best about The Last Policeman? What did you like least?

The premise was excellent, so my expectations were high. Unfortunately, it missed the mark and I'm not sure I'll listen to the next book.

If you???ve listened to books by Ben H. Winters before, how does this one compare?

First book by this author.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

The performance was delivered in a sort of sarcastic manner and tone, which made the story seem juvenile, somehow. The narrator made the protagonist seem self loathing, rather than just troubled.

Was The Last Policeman worth the listening time?

I found myself bored and distracted through this audiobook. I really wanted to like this book, perhaps with a different narrator it could have had a different feel. The dialogue was also a bit stiff, the protagonist switching between four letter words and expressions like "holey moley!" was grating and felt really forced. Again, this could have been the narrator's inflection.

Fascinating premise

A very clever premise - dedicated detective pursuing a murder case during the last days of life on earth. The murder mystery could have been better constructed...for me it was the protagonist's interaction with others as the society crumbles around him that elevated this book beyond average.

The Title Says it All

(sing with me ...REM)
"its the end of the world as we know it..."

The comet is coming, the comet is coming!

A newly-promoted Detective is not going to let a little thing like death and dying get in the way of his dreams, especially when he senses foul play.

Amazing Storytelling.

Where does The Last Policeman rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
One of the best works of fiction in its genre the past few years.

Any additional comments?
At first I could not understand the author's choice of tense because I am sometimes a little dense. When I did, I realized that was the genius of the book.

Excellent detective story with a unique setting.

An excellent detective tale, but with an interesting twist to the setting to give it a bit of new life. The narration and voice acting is excellent and very much adds to the overall experience. Highly recommended.

End of The World stoy powered by quiet desperation

The world is ending. Everyone will be dead soon. Everyone knows that. Everyone reacts to it differently.

Hank Palace, recently promoted to his dream job of homicide detective, decides to carry on investigating murders. Or perhaps it's more accurate to say that it never occurs to him to stop.

His focus, his need to follow the rules, his quiet persistence in his task, affects the people around him, making them uncomfortable, or bemused, or sometimes even hopeful.

This is not a Summer Blockbuster Movie "end of the world" novel. There are no aliens, or zombies. Our hero is not trying to save the world in the next 48 Hours. He's not even trying to save himself. He just wants to do his job as well as he can.

Actually, Palace doesn't have much of a life to save. He's a loner and a misfit. Not the charismatic kind that you find in buddy-cop movies, but the slightly embarrassing to notice kind of loner that people avoid either because that kind of isolation might be contagious, or because of an Uncanny Valley Effect that says that, although Hank looks normal, there's something a little off about him that's hard to take.

On the surface, nothing much happens in this book. There is a murder and a mystery, actually more than one mystery, and love and betrayal and lots and lots of deaths but the book feels almost horrifyingly tranquil.

Ben Winters' writing is first-rate: economical, precise and quietly clever. Peter Berkrot's narration in the audiobook amplifies this by being undramatic without being flat or dull.

When I first finished the book a couple of months ago, I gave it a three star rating on goodreads.com but I couldn't bring myself to write a review. I felt as if I'd finished the book but it hadn't finished with me.

I found my mind returning to it over the following weeks and slowly articulated to myself why the book wouldn't leave me alone. It's because, without the intervention of an asteroid, everyone's world is ending. We will all be dead relatively soon (I'm fifty-seven, neither of my parents made it past sixty-nine, death's wingéd chariot is starting to tailgate me). We all know it. We all react to it differently. All that Winters' changed in his novel is that everyone is going to die at more or less the same time.

The strongest message I got from his book is that most of us get through the day because we believe there will be an infinite number of tomorrows, or at least too many to have to worry yet, and if we do get that "any day now" warning, we know that the world, and the people we care about, will go on. Which makes what happens to us today, bearable. Which takes away the need to think about why I spent today on a train for four hours to spend tomorrow in meeting with people I don't know so I can make the same journey back tomorrow night.

I'm an Atheist by conviction. I believe that done is done. I know I'm going to die. I don't believe there will be an accounting. No reward. No punishment. No anything. I thought I understood what that meant but I think I was still holding out on myself until I read Winters' book.

The people around Palace are making choices. Some of them are pursuing bucket-lists like the activities still matter to them, like goals have any meaning any more. Some are losing themselves in drink or drugs or sex or all three. Some of them are just lost, shocked, adrift, almost dead already. A few, a very few, carry on doing the things they love: making the perfect cup of coffee, or doing what it takes to solve a murder. I realize that I and the people around me, all of us, are acting out these reactions to our impending ending everyday, we just make ourselves forget about it.

Ben Winters' has taken all this "normal" getting-through-the-day behaviour and put it in a setting that makes it problematic, thereby making our seen-but-too-familiar to be noticed reactions visible.

This is what was unsettling me about the book: it was giving me a lens to see that, in many ways, the end of the world really is nigh and I'm plodding on like I don't have a choice.

Anyway, I've upgraded my goodreads rating to four stars, bought "Countdown City", book two of the trilogy and I've written this review to exorcise my discomfort.

If you're in the mood for some uncanny reality, give "The Last Policeman" a try.