World of Trouble (2014)
Ben H. Winters (1976)
316 pages
[Note: although I make it a point to not include spoilers in my reviews, this is the third book in a trilogy, and it's not possible to write about it without including some context from the first two books, The Last Policeman and Countdown City. So, if you haven't read the first book yet, I suggest you jump back to my review of The Last Policeman here; if you’ve read that, but not Countdown City, you’ll find my review of that second story here.]
With but a week to go before the impact of an asteroid expected to largely wipe out life on Earth, former detective Henry Palace pursues his final case in World of Trouble, the concluding book in Ben H. Winters’ The Last Policeman trilogy. Following a cryptic trail of uncertain clues to a small town in Ohio, Palace goes in search of his sister Niko, desperately hoping to find her ahead of the now imminent apocalypse.
Niko’s involvement in a far-fetched scheme to save the planet appeared as subplots in the first two books in the trilogy (The Last Policeman reviewed here, and Countdown City reviewed here), in which it was revealed that she has become actively involved with a group of people convinced that a nefarious conspiracy lies behind the U.S. government’s lack of efforts to prevent the asteroids impact. The group believes that they have discovered a plan that the government has intentionally covered up, a way to deflect the asteroid; to foil the conspiracy, the group works to put that plan into action. Palace, though convinced that his sister and her comrades have fallen victim to wishful thinking in the face of the coming catastrophe, at the same time struggles to make sense of the extensive capabilities the group has managed to acquire in the otherwise rapidly disintegrating economic and political environment caused by the approaching asteroid strike.
Late in the second story, Palace watches Niko disappear in a helicopter; unwilling to follow her, he also does not try to prevent her from leaving to pursue the plan she believes will save the Earth. As the second book ends, Palace reaches a house in western Massachusetts that several of his former police colleagues have converged upon in the hopes of creating a location of relative peace and safety for their families to ride out the final months before the asteroid hits. As World of Trouble opens, however, Palace finds himself unable to abandon his sister to her fate, and feeling guilty that he had not stuck with her, he has left the safe house in an attempt to track her down.
Passing through the dystopian and chaotic remains of a pre-apocalyptic world, Palace casts about for even the smallest clues that point toward his sister. In what has been a hallmark of these stories, Palace finds that the perverted social and political situation confounds his analysis of what he learns, leading him through a dangerous and complicated labyrinth of miss-calculation and miss-interpretation as he doggedly struggles to uncover the surprising truth about his sister and the plans she’s been involved in.
Taken together, the three books in Winters’ trilogy form an engaging offering, providing both the thrilling drama of the best detective stories and a compelling psychological look at mankind faced with a sudden and inglorious end.
Other reviews / information:
In the post-script of my review of Countdown City, I likened Winters' trilogy to Nevil Shute’s novel On the Beach (my review here). As I read World of Trouble, in which the end really has become imminent, another comparison came to mind: Lars von Trier’s movie Melancholia, in which a rogue planet enters the system on a collision course with Earth. Von Trier focuses entirely on the psychological impact of the coming apocalypse and includes a healthy dose of surrealism, while Winters, in his trilogy, uses the psychological implications more as a pungent spice for his gritty detective stories; there is, never-the-less, a strong overlap in how the two works examine the complex and varied reactions of different people to the imminent end of the world.
Have you read this book, others by this author, or even similar ones by other authors? I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts.
Other of my book reviews: FICTION Bookshelf and NON-FICTION Bookshelf
No comments:
Post a Comment