Countdown City

It's an existential detective novel if that's your thing. When an extinction sized asteroid is 77 days away from striking earth, potentially ending all life, what's the point in putting on a suit and taking on a missing person's case? Protagonist Hank Palace isn't even a cop anymore and with the Earth ending - many have gone “bucket list” chasing end of the world thrills, or their own oblivion into drugs and debauchery. So when an ex state-trooper, now pizza restauranteur and devoted husband disappears why would it be any different than the hordes of others leaving their lives before life leaves them?

Countdown City is the second in the proposed Last Policeman trilogy from the author of “Android Karenina” and “Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters”. The whole felt a little too “convenient” - but maybe it suffers for my having skipped the first in the series. The sophomore slump wherein we flesh out the cast of characters and bridge the introduction of the world ending conceit in the first book with the final resolution in the third.