World of Trouble

The Last Policeman, Book 3

By: Ben H. Winters

Narrated by: Peter Berkrot

“A genre-defying blend of crime writing and science fiction.”—Alexandra Alter, The New York Times

The explosive final installment in the Edgar® Award winning Last Policeman series.

With the doomsday asteroid looming, Detective Hank Palace has found sanctuary in the woods of New England, secure in a well-stocked safe house with other onetime members of the Concord police force. But with time ticking away before the asteroid makes landfall, Hank’s safety is only relative, and his only relative—his sister Nico—isn’t safe. Soon, it’s clear that there’s more than one earth-shattering revelation on the horizon, and it’s up to Hank to solve the puzzle before time runs out...for everyone.

©2014 Ben H. Winters (P)2014 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.

Just, wow

The high premise carried the story through am three books and Winters unique voice made every page awesome.

Brilliant

This is a great series both in story and performance. I was worried that the ending would not be satisfying but I was impressed with how the author chose to end it. It was worthy of the story.

beautifully sad

this series is the best thing I have ever read in my life. I'm serious.

Riveting

Incredible finale to an engaging series. I had chills! The concept was original and the characters were believable. It's a tragedy that helps you glide to the finish with updrafts of hope, countered by humility, landing softly in the embrace of humanity. Excellent series.

finally a series finale that pays off

so often a good series is ruined by a so-so or underwhelming finale. that's not the case here, instead the entire series is elevated by this final story.

Painful Due to Unreliable Protagonist

World of trouble is well written as a speculation about how people might psychologically cope with impending apocalypse, but it's also painful to read. I had a hard time getting through it because I couldn't stand the basically psychotic, self-centered, protagonist. He single-mindedly spends the entire trilogy solving "cases" that have become irrelevant due to the impending end of the world. He does so to the detriment of people around him, endangering them and using scarce resources because he can't control his compulsion to find whatever piece of information he has become obsessed with. He is so delusional in this last book that he feels compelled to "gather evidence" and "take fingerprints" three days before the world will end and when there is no lab anywhere or police force to analyze them. He perpetrates cruel acts toward several others in order to "interrogate" them, about crimes that no one cares about, in his unfettered compulsion. The author may be doing a good job of depicting psychological breakdown under stress-- most of the remaining people have become somewhat psychotic-- but it's hard to read a book whose first-person protagonist is so out of control. Also, I personally don't find Winters' depiction of a pre-apocalypse credible. I can't imagine that there would be absolutely no organization or any major attempt to take humanity underground.

Depressing, average, slightly toxic but rewarding

The scenario for this series is conceptually simple and predictable. There is a constant variable, an asteroid. There is the predictable quest for survival. The writing is not the greatest.

The Trilogy economics is that this series did not need to be three books. This is really one book. Yet, you will need to read all three for the full literary experience, meaning you are buying an average work at three times the cost. This is a problem with all post-apocalyptic trilogies, and a reason you should probably avoid reading them.

Yet authors need income, and this is a good author. So even an average effort on his part will be an above-par literary experience compared to most other stuff out there. Winter's writing style is magnetic and absorbing. He conveyed the misery so well, I was genuinely thrown into a kind off addicted depression when listening to this series. It's a miserable story, and a miserable hero. But it keeps calling to you to finish.

There are toxic parts to this series. The violence is very graphic, much more so than you would expect. Women are not treated well. Liberal-minded people are gullible throwaway idiots. Guns are idolized. Religious people are valuable and idolized. If I believed the author engineered the story specifically for political purposes, I would have classified it as right-wing propaganda. But he didn't. It's merely a product of his rather biased imagination.

The hero is flawed, self-righteous and obsessive. The scenario is unrealistic, and the public's behavior and identity politics are unrealistic. But within that unreality, each scene is plausible. People do things for plausible reasons. Liberals and women just happen to be motivated badly. It takes some objectivity to tolerate (once again) the unlikely scenario that reality wouldn't have been setup exactly in the opposite manner, with religious conservatives being the badly-motivated kooks.

In any case, a lot of "fun things happen" and it's quite engaging. You can't allow your attention to stray too much, or you'll lose the thread of the story and not know what's going on. The location and time changes are not remarkable, but scenes slide into each other with little to no fanfare. Bit things can change in a sentence or two, so although it's not a hard read, it requires your attention. The author tends to defer identification of the location of each scene until the middle of the scene. He jumps around a lot and you have to think about where the hero is, what he is doing, and the context of what is happening.

The narration is very good, and gets better with each book. My only complaint is the narrator's voice is oily. Hard to get over, but his other talents make you forget his "I'm going to read some porn to you" tenor.

My thoughts are with people who enjoy detective fantasy, probably something you will want to experience. There is a lot of inner voice, introspection, misery and hallmark plot twists from the author.

oof

perfect ending to a series of unrelenting certainty of destruction. this has become one of my favorite series

Decided to read it instead...

and that was a good idea. I was both eager and reluctant to listen to this book, given the premise of the series, which is that an asteroid -- a "planet killer" -- is reaching Earth, and this is not the kind of series that would end with some kind of last-minute space heroism. Instead this is a trilogy of how one ordinary man conducts his life as time runs out. A policeman for a short amount of time, a detective for even less before civil society breaks down, he finds purpose in continuing his work on his own, reminding himself of the rules he learned in the little bit of training he got, collecting evidence and fingerprints even with no one to analyze them, attempting to right wrongs. In this third book, he leaves a relatively safe refuge to find his troubled sister and solve the mystery surrounding her activities in the last few months. I liked the story, and the ending was very well done. The problem I had though was with the performance. Peter Berkrot breathlessly read each line with urgency, even when the line was something like "I looked under the sink to see if I could find any evidence." I thought that undermined the main character, who created structure and meaning in his last remaining months by solving mysteries through dogged persistence and an almost absurd adherence to procedure, rejecting the hysteria, panic, and anarchy he finds along the way. You can't narrate an entire book at a fever pitch. I bought the Kindle edition and finished the book that way.

Pulls You Back In

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

A compelling story which the narrator enhances with subtle voice. Quiet engrossing. A story which I will listen again.

What was one of the most memorable moments of World of Trouble?

The author is able to bring the story to a personal level. You know only what the narrator knows. And find out in good time. A very compelling read.

Have you listened to any of Peter Berkrot’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Have finished the Last Policeman Trilogy and glad I did it. A little resentful because each time I would start to listen everything else in my world took second priority. I would listen to the end.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes. Several times.

Any additional comments?

Enjoyed the book and the series. Still a lot of unanswered questions, plus a big concern as to What Happens Next. Maybe there will be another.