The world is ending. For real. And not with a whimper but a bang.

Cover image of 'World of Trouble," a sci-fi mystery mashup

Try to imagine what might happen if a huge asteroid were heading straight for Earth and nothing could stop it. The human race would be annihilated. Do you think for a minute that people would just continue living their lives and content themselves with wishful thinking and prayer? Or would the world descend into chaos, as people everywhere began leaving their jobs and acting out their basest instincts? Unfortunately, the answer is obvious. And it’s chaos that confronts former Concord, New Hampshire Detective Hank Palace as he searches the Northeast for his nutty younger sister, Nico. She’s fallen prey to the fantasy that a mysterious missing space scientist has a plan to destroy the asteroid—and only she and the small group of misfits she’s fallen in with can pull it off. This is the promising set-up in the concluding volume of novelist Ben H. Winters trio of sci-fi mystery mashups, World of Trouble.

Murder mysteries unfold as the end of the human race draws near

The first book in the trilogy, The Last Policeman, poses the question, “What’s the point in solving murders if we’re all going to die soon, anyway?” But Palace won’t give up. He sets out to investigate a death by hanging in a city that sees a dozen suicides every week. Because this one feels suspicious, and Palace is the only cop who cares.

Then, in Countdown City, the second book, there are just 77 days before the asteroid will collide with Earth. The Concord police force now operates as the local arm of the US Justice Department. Hank’s days of solving crimes are over. But then a woman from his past begs for help finding her missing husband. And his investigation leads him to an anarchist encampment and the base of an anti-immigrant militia attacking refugees from the Eastern Hemisphere. They’re flooding into North America, because the asteroid will land in Asia.

Now, in World of Trouble, Hank has successfully concluded the investigations he undertook in the two previous books. But he faces his greatest challenge, as all semblance of normal life has ended around him. And he is desperate to save Nico from the fanatics who are pursuing the fantasy that the asteroid can be stopped. As he chases his sister throughout the Northeast, he finds that “nobody is the kind of person they used to be.” Guns are everywhere, freely used. Looting is universal. Rape and murder are rampant. And Nico, he finds, has fallen prey to a messianic madman and his hangers-on who have somehow hacked government databases and commandeered a large military helicopter.

World of Trouble (The Last Policeman #3 of 3) by Ben H. Winters (2014) 322 pages ★★★★☆

Photo of devastration on city street after violent protest, a scene like those in this sci-fi mystery mashup — *Devastration on city street after violent protest, like scenes throughout the United States in this novel. Image: Teri Shaffney – Washington Post*

A picture of a world falling apart

Ben Winters is a skillful writer. He writes for television and comic books, too, having mastered the arts of plotting and character development. And it shows in all three volumes of the Last Policeman Trilogy. The books reflect his fondness for both science fiction and mystery. These three, and others, are sci-fi mystery mashups. And they’re among the most successful I’ve come across in a lifetime of reading science fiction.

But what most distinguishes the books of this trilogy is Winters’ ability to paint a picture of a world falling apart. His portrayal of the mania and desperation that have seized hold of otherwise average people. And he recognizes that reactions to the imminence of the Apocalypse will vary greatly, not just from one person to another but from one place to another. One of the people Hank Palace encounters has devised a color-coding system to catalog the towns he visits, from red (unrelenting violence) to blue (everyone driven indoors) to black (no semblance of life anymore). Sadly, this all rings true.

About the author

Photo of Ben H. Winters, author of this sci-fi mystery mashup — *Ben H. Winters. Image: Revenge Of*

Ben H. Winters is the author of a dozen novels, including the three books of the award-winning Last Policeman Trilogy. He is also a television writer/producer, comic book writer, and creator of original audio content. Winters was born in Washington, DC in 1976 and educated at Washington University in St. Louis. He now lives in Los Angeles with his wife and three children.

I’ve also reviewed the first two books in this trilogy as well as two other excellent science fiction novels the author has written: