Countdown City

Ben Winters continues the series he started in The Last Policeman (see earlier entry) with Countdown City.  In this book we are 3 months closer to the effective end of the world by asteroid and things are deteriorating even more.  Former police detective Hank Palace has been asked to find a missing person, his former babysitter’s husband.  He is driven (clearly as a coping mechanism) to find an answer to the mystery and he does succeed in doing so.  The attraction of the book continues to be its dire setting and its depiction of society breaking down in the face of certain doom.  The setting is very depressing, I was actually moved to tears (very rare for me) but it somehow remains compelling.

If you read the first book you’ll want to give this one a try too.  If you didn’t you’ll want to start with the first & then pick this title up once you’ve finished it.