I have to admit that, based entirely on the other fiction I've read from Quirk Books (notably their Quirk Classics series: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, and the like), when I first heard about this book I fully expected it to be yet another zombie apocalypse novel, and as such was, if I may be honest, feeling sort of meh about reading it. But when I read a synopsis and realized that that was not at all what it was about, I decided to give it a whirl -- and I'm glad I did!

In this brilliantly imagined novel, the world is on the cusp of disaster: in a mere six months, an asteroid will smash into the earth, and life as we know it will come to an end. Or maybe, life as we know it has come to an end already. Suicide has become endemic. The economy is collapsing. The telecommunications grid is slowly falling apart. Supplies run short. People are abandoning their jobs and their lives, determined to make the most of their last six months. But in the midst of all this chaos is Concord Police Department detective Hank Palace, a new investigator assigned to what looks like a run-of-the-mill suicide. Yet something about the scene looks unusual to him and, convinced that the suicide was staged, he sets out to investigate the case and find a murderer. To most everyone, this seems pointless at best: with the world ending, why bother solving a crime? But to Palace, who has waited his whole life to be a detective, there's nothing more important.

The book is a little bit of everything: It's dystopian fiction. It's a police procedural and a murder mystery. It's a conspiracy thriller: what does the government know that they aren't telling us? None of these are genres that I read with any frequency, but the whole thing worked for me and I couldn't put it down. In terms of its literary merits, the book is written in a standard thriller-style: it's about the story, not about the language, though Winters allows himself a couple of poetic flights. The true genius of the book isn't in the plot in and of itself, but in the detail that Winters scatters throughout the book: What would the world look like in the face of unavoidable catastrophe? What keeps people going -- or convinces them to take matters into the own hands?

The Last Policeman is supposed to be the first in a trilogy. I hope that Mr. Winters isn't in touch with his inner George R. R. Martin -- please don't keep us waiting too long!

Advance reading copy received for review from Quirk Books at Book Expo America 2012.