Countdown City: The Last Policeman Book II (The Last Policeman Trilogy)

From Publishers Weekly In this sequel to Edgar Award-winning The Last Policeman, Winters intensifies his vision of a lawless apocalyptic society as an asteroid nicknamed "Maia" continues its deadly trajectory toward Earth. Impact: October 3rd. Seventy-seven days from when the narrative picks up. Set in Concord, N.H., where the police force is fraying and money has no value, people are frantically fleeing the Eastern Hemisphere to seek refuge from Maia's direct path, amidst hundreds of U.S. citizens who are simply disappearing. Narrator and straight-laced detective Hank Palace has lost his job, but he still can't resist helping his childhood babysitter Martha Cavatone locate her missing husband. With the end of the world nigh—and a bike as his only mode of transportation—this is no easy task. Clues lead Palace to a colonization of radicals who've overtaken the University of New Hampshire and followed by a forsaken coastal fort used to execute catastrophe immigrants as they approach the shore. While not as well paced or marvelously original as its predecessor, this second installment in a planned trilogy is darker, more violent and more oppressive. Through it all Palace remains a likeable hero for end times, and with Concord already in ruins, readers are left to wonder how he'll survive to tell his final tale. (July) From Booklist For those who haven’t read The Last Policeman (2012), here’s what you need to know: the world is doomed. An asteroid is going to smash into the planet earth in the very near future. Society is in disarray. A lot of people have already checked out, via suicide or just vanishing entirely. Law and order is more of an idea than a practical reality. Hank Palace is a police officer—well, he used to be, before the police department was shut down a few months ago. Now, like most people, he’s unemployed. When an old friend asks him to find her missing husband, Hank reluctantly agrees. But how do you find a missing person when half the people in the country aren’t where they’re supposed to be? As with the first Hank Palace novel (this is volume 2 of a projected trilogy), the mystery element is strong, and the strange, pre-apocalyptic world is highly imaginative and also very plausible—it’s easy to think that the impending end of the world might feel very much like this. Genre mash-up master Winters is at it again. --David Pitt “It’s funny, it’s thrilling, it’s crazy, it’s interesting.”—Jenna Bush Hager, TODAY with Hoda & Jenna “I always appreciate novels that have new and interesting approaches to traditional genres, and Ben H. Winters’ two novels featuring Hank Palace fill the bill.”— Nancy Pearl , NPRxa0“Winters is brilliant in conveying the ways in which people look for their best impulses but often end up as the victims of other people’s most base instincts.”— Toronto Star “Don’t miss this series!”— Sci Fi Magazine “Winters is a deft storyteller who moves his novel effortlessly from its intriguing setup to a thrilling, shattering conclusion.”— Los Angeles Review of Books “One of the best mysteries I’ve read in such a long time.”—Nancy Pearl, KUOW “Winters’s work shines.”— Locus “The ‘don’t lose hope’ ending is slam bang, setting us up for the ‘final-final’ installment.”— Florida Times-Union “ A precise, calendar-driven doom casts a shadow over the series, a planet-killer asteroid that the Earth can’t duck, making this an existential policier. ”— The Sunbreak “A thrilling and contagious read.”— Fayetteville Flyer “Gripping.”— The Free Lance-Star “Highly imaginative and also very plausible—it’s easy to think that the impending end of the world might feel very much like this. Genre mash-up master Winters is at it again.”— Booklist “Through it all Palace remains a likeable hero for end times.”— PublishersWeekly.com Praise for The Last Policeman Winner of the 2013 Edgar®xa0Award Winner for Best Paperback Original One of Slate’s Best Books of 2012 "[The] weird, beautiful, unapologetically apocalyptic Last Policeman trilogy is one of my favorite mystery series."—John Green, author of The Fault in Our Stars and Paper Towns “Winters’s apocalyptic detective story contains an earth-shattering element of science fiction that lifts it beyond a typical procedural.” —New York Times Book Review “An appealing hybrid of the best of science fiction and crime fiction.”— The Washington Post “In his acclaimed Last Policeman trilogy, Winters showed off his mastery of edgy, sardonic wit — there’s nothing like an asteroid speeding toward Earth to bring out the black humor in people.”— Newsday Ben H. Winters is the New York Times best-selling, Edgar Award–winning, and Philip K. Dick Award–winning author of The Quiet Boy, Golden State, Underground Airlines , the Last Policeman trilogy, and the mash-up novel Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters . Ben has also worked extensively in television; he was a writer on the FX cult hit Legion as well as Manhunt on Apple TV+, and he is the creator of the CBS drama Tracker. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, three kids, and one large dog. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. 1. “It’s just that he promised ,” says Martha Milano, pale eyes flashing,xa0cheeks flushed with anxiety. Grieving, bewildered, desperate. “Wexa0both did. We promised each other like a million times.”xa0 xa0 xa0“Right,” I say. “Of course.”xa0 xa0 xa0I pluck a tissue from the box on her kitchen table and Marthaxa0takes it, smiles weakly, blows her nose. “I’m sorry,” she says, and honksxa0again, and then she gathers herself, just a little, sits up straight andxa0takes a breath. “But so Henry, you’re a policeman.”xa0 xa0 xa0“I was.”xa0 xa0 xa0“Right. You were. But, I mean, is there . . .”xa0 xa0 xa0She can’t finish, but she doesn’t need to. I understand the questionxa0and it floats there in the air between us and slowly revolves: Is there anything you can do? And of course I’m dying to help her, butxa0frankly I’m not sure whether there is anything that I can do, and it’sxa0hard, it’s impossible, really, to know what to say. For the last hour I’vexa0just been sitting here and listening, taking down the information inxa0my slim blue exam-taker’s notebook. Martha’s missing husband isxa0Brett Cavatone; age thirty-three; last seen at a restaurant calledxa0Rocky’s Rock ’n’ Bowl, on Old Loudon Road, out by the Steeplegatexa0Mall. It’s her father’s place, Martha explained, a family-friendlyxa0pizza-joint-slash-bowling-alley, still open despite everything, thoughxa0with a drastically reduced menu. Brett has worked there, her father’sxa0right-hand man, for two years. Yesterday morning, about 8:45, he leftxa0to do some errands and never came back.xa0 xa0 xa0I read over these scant notes one more time in the worried silencexa0of Martha’s neat and sunlit kitchen. Officially her name isxa0Martha Cavatone, but to me she will always be Martha Milano, thexa0fifteen-year-old kid who watched my sister Nico and me after school,xa0five days a week, until my mom got home, gave her ten bucks in anxa0envelope, and asked after her folks. It’s unmooring to see her as anxa0adult, let alone one overturned by the emotional catastrophe of havingxa0been abandoned by her husband. How much stranger it must bexa0for her to be turning to me, of all people, whom she last laid eyes onxa0when I was twelve. She blows her nose again, and I give her a smallxa0gentle smile. Martha Milano with the overstuffed purple JanSportxa0backpack, the Pearl Jam T shirt. Cherry-pink bubblegum and cinnamonxa0lip gloss.xa0 xa0 xa0She wears no makeup now. Her hair is an unruly brown pile;xa0her eyes are red rimmed from crying; she’s gnawing vigorously onxa0the nail of her thumb.xa0 xa0 xa0“Disgusting, right?” she says, catching me looking. “But I’vexa0been smoking like crazy since April, and Brett never says anythingxa0even though I know it grosses him out. I have this stupid feeling, like,xa0if I stop now, it’ll bring him home. I’m sorry, Henry, did you—” Shexa0stands abruptly. “Do you want tea or something?”xa0 xa0 xa0“No, thank you.”xa0 xa0 xa0“Water?”xa0 xa0 xa0“No. It’s okay, Martha. Sit down.”xa0 xa0 xa0She falls back into the chair, stares at the ceiling. What I wantxa0of course is coffee, but thanks to whatever byzantine chain of infrastructuralxa0disintegration is determining the relative availability of variousxa0perishable items, coffee cannot be found. I close my notebookxa0and look Martha in the eye.xa0 xa0 xa0“It’s tough,” I say slowly, “it really is. There are just a lot of reasonsxa0why a missing-persons investigation is especially challenging inxa0the current environment.”xa0 xa0 xa0“Yeah. No.” She blinks her eyes, closed and then open again. “Ixa0mean, of course. I know.”xa0 xa0 xa0Dozens of reasons, really. Hundreds. There is no way to put outxa0a description on the wires, to issue an APB or post to the FBI Kidnappingsxa0and Missing Persons List. Witnesses who might know thexa0location of a missing individual have very little interest or incentivexa0to divulge that information, if they haven’t gone missing themselves.xa0There is no way to access federal or local databases. As of last Friday,xa0in fact, southern New Hampshire appears to have no electricityxa0whatsoever. Plus of course I’m not a policeman anymore, and evenxa0if I was, the CPD as a matter of policy is no longer pursuing suchxa0cases. All of which makes finding one particular individual a longxa0shot, is what I tell Martha. Especially—and here I pause, load myxa0voice with as much care and sensitivity as I can—especially sincexa0many such people left on purpose.xa0 xa0 xa0“Yeah,” she says flatly. “Of course.”xa0 xa0 xa0Martha knows all of this. Everybody knows. The world is onxa0the move. Plenty still leaving in droves on their Bucket List adventures,xa0going off to snorkel or skydive or make love to strangers inxa0public parks. And now, more recently, whole new forms of abruptxa0departure, new species of madness as we approach the end. Religiousxa0sects wandering New England in robes, competing for converts: thexa0Doomsday Mormons, the Satellites of God. The mercy cruisers, travelingxa0the deserted highways in buses with converted engines runningxa0on wood gas or coal, seeking opportunities for Samaritanship. Andxa0of course the preppers, down in their basements, hoarding what theyxa0can, building piles for the aftermath, as if any amount of preparationxa0will suffice.xa0 xa0 xa0I stand up, close my notebook. Change the subject. “How isxa0your block?”xa0 xa0 xa0“It’s fine,” says Martha. “I guess.”xa0 xa0 xa0“There’s an active residents association?”xa0 xa0 xa0“Yes.” She nods blankly, not interested in the line of questioning,xa0not ready to contemplate how things will be for her alone.xa0 xa0 xa0“And let me ask, hypothetically, if there were a firearm in thexa0home . . .”xa0 xa0 xa0“There is,” she begins. “Brett left his—”xa0 xa0 xa0I hold up one hand, cut her off. “Hypothetically. Would youxa0know how to use it?”xa0 xa0 xa0“Yes,” she says. “I can shoot. Yes.”xa0 xa0 xa0I nod. Fine. All I needed to hear. Private ownership or sale ofxa0firearms is technically forbidden, although the brief wave of house-to-house searches ended months ago. Obviously I’m not going toxa0bike over to School Street and report that Martha Cavatone has herxa0husband’s service piece under the bed—get her sent away for the duration—but neither do I need to hear any details.xa0 xa0 xa0Martha murmurs “excuse me” and gets up, jerks open thexa0pantry door and reaches for a tottering pile of cigarette cartons. Butxa0then she stops herself, slams the door, and spins around to press herxa0fingers into her eyes. It’s almost comical, it’s such a teenage set of gestures:xa0the impetuous grab for comfort, the immediate and disgustedxa0self-abnegation. I remember standing in our front hallway, at sevenxa0or eight years old, just after Martha went home in the evenings, tryingxa0to catch one last sniff of cinnamon and bubblegum.xa0 xa0 xa0“Okay, so, Martha, what I can do is go by the restaurant,” I say—I hear myself saying—“and ask a few questions.” And as soon as thexa0words are out she’s across the room, hugging me around the neck, grinningxa0into my chest, like it’s a done deal, like I’ve already brought herxa0husband home and he’s out there on the stoop, ready to come in.xa0 xa0 xa0“Oh, thank you,” she says. “ Thank you , Henry.”xa0 xa0 xa0“Listen, wait—wait, Martha.”xa0 xa0 xa0I gently pry her arms from around my neck, step back and plantxa0her in front of me, summon the stern hardheaded spirit of my grandfather,xa0level Martha with his severe stare. “I will do what I can to findxa0your husband, okay?”xa0 xa0 xa0“Okay,” she says, breathless. “You promise?”xa0 xa0 xa0“Yes.” I nod. “I can’t promise that I will find him, and I definitelyxa0can’t promise that I will bring him home. But I’ll do what Ixa0can.”xa0 xa0 xa0“Of course,” she says, “I understand,” and she’s beaming, huggingxa0me again, my notes of caution sliding unheard off her cheeks. Ixa0can’t help it, I’m smiling, too, Martha Milano is hugging me and I’mxa0smiling.xa0 xa0 xa0“I’ll pay you, of course,” she says.xa0 xa0 xa0“No, you won’t.”xa0 xa0 xa0“No, I know, not with money money, but we can figure outxa0something . . .”xa0 xa0 xa0“Martha, no. I won’t take anything from you. Let’s have a lookxa0around, okay?”xa0 xa0 xa0“Okay,” she says, wiping the last of the tears from her eyes. Read more