Countdown City by Ben H. WintersMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
The Last Policeman was one of my favorite books of 2012, and I've spent the year since I read it talking it up to friends and library patrons. I cheered when it won the 2013 Edgar Award for best paperback original. But mostly, I've been eagerly awaiting the sequel.
After all that waiting, I was quite pleased to see that Countdown City didn't disappoint. In this second book in the trilogy, there are 77 days remaining until the asteroid Maia slams into the Earth. Civilization is continuing to crumble -- utilities and communications systems are shutting down, food and other necessities are growing scarce, and society has become a strange hybrid of anarchy and martial law. But Detective Hank Palace, formerly of the Concord Police Department, does his best to carry on with his life as normally as possible. When his former babysitter asks him to help find her missing husband -- a difficult prospect at best in a world where so many have "gone bucket list" -- he takes on the task, since fundamentally he still believes in law and order and a society with rules and right and wrong, even in a world where not many people do.
As with The Last Policeman, the biggest strength of the book is the depiction of life in an increasingly desperate world. The book shows an interesting cross-section of humanity -- those who have quietly accepted their fate; the profiteers; the people who believe that the whole situation is a conspiracy that they can put an end to. There is an unasked question that winds itself throughout the book: Reader, what would you do? Who would you be?
Review copy received from Quirk Books
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Aha! I didn't realize the next book was out - thanks for mentioning it!
Posted by: Heather | Saturday, August 10, 2013 at 01:29 PM