Book Review + Giveaway: World of Trouble, by Ben Winters

Ben Winters is back with World of Trouble, the conclusion to the Last Policeman trilogy, which is just as heartfelt and thoughtful and occasionally hilarious as the previous two volumes in the collection. The novel again follows Detective Henry (Hank) Palace, who is still trying to solve crimes even with the meteor Maia only weeks from impact.

In World of Trouble, the crime is he trying to solve is more personal than ever before: Palace is looking for his sister Nico, last spotted flying in a helicopter out to an unspecified location, where she and a group of fellow conspiracy-theorists were going to alter Maia's path and prevent it from hitting Earth. Suffice it to say that Nico does not want to be found, while Hank very much wants to find her, which leaves him tracing sketchy clues to even sketchier locations: an abandoned clothing store that once had a rogue internet connection; an empty police station in the middle of Ohio; an Amish farm.

World of Trouble continue the excellent philosophical narrative that Winters established in The Last Policeman and Countdown City. It asks big questions--What would you do if you knew the world was going to end? How would you protect the ones you love?--and offers up scattered answers: You might pretend the world was not going to end, or set out to horde as many supplies as possible. You might go Bucket List or take your own life. You might cut your family off from all communications to let them live their last days in ignorance of the coming events.

And buried within this philosophy is a mystery novel like any other, as a committed detective follows obscure clues to get to what he wants: answers. Where? Why? How?

It's no small task, setting a mystery in a world that is about to end, but Winters has pulled it off with panache. Seriously, if you haven't read these books already, stop everything and go pick them up.

Or just enter to win all three (courtesy of the publisher, Quirk Books) using the form below:

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Good luck, and happy reading! And check back Friday for a post from Winters on how reading mystery novels shaped his writing, and what books he recommends for aspiring mystery writers.