''World of Trouble'' is an American

soft science fiction Soft science fiction, or soft SF, is a category of science fiction with two different definitions, defined in contrast to hard science fiction. It can refer to science fiction that explores the "soft" sciences (e.g. psychology, political scienc ...

mystery novel by

Ben H. Winters Benjamin Allen H. "Ben" Winters (born 1976) is an American author. Early life and education Winters was born in Maryland. In high school, he played in the punk band Corm, alongside John Davis, now of Title Tracks. In 1998, he graduated from Wash ...

and published by

Quirk Books Quirk Books is an American independent book publisher based in Philadelphia. History Before 2002, Quirk Books was a creative studio that would pitch novel ideas to other publishers. Quirk Books was founded as a publishing company in 2002 by Da ...

. It is the third and last installment of the '' Last Policeman'' trilogy. It was published on July 15, 2014.

Plot

Only weeks and then days remain, as asteroid ''2011GV1'' is on the final stage of its deadly course towards Earth and it will impact within the

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

n archipelago, which will obliterate humanity in an

extinction event An extinction event (also known as a mass extinction or biotic crisis) is a widespread and rapid decrease in the biodiversity on Earth. Such an event is identified by a sharp change in the diversity and abundance of multicellular organisms. I ...

akin to that which wiped out the dinosaurs. Former Concord, New Hampshire police detective Henry Palace has found sanctuary in the woods of

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...

with a settlement of other former police officers. With only days left before the end of the world, Palace must solve one last case: finding his sister Nico. Nico is involved with a pseudo-survivalist cult. However, she is murdered in

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

, and Palace needs to identify her killer and their motivation. En route, he encounters fragments of disintegrating U.S. society, such as armed gangs, intact communities, surviving families, former

illegal immigrants Illegal immigration is the migration of people into a country in violation of the immigration laws of that country or the continued residence without the legal right to live in that country. Illegal immigration tends to be financially upwa ...

, delusional survivalists or religious groups, and an

Amish The Amish (; pdc, Amisch; german: link=no, Amische), formally the Old Order Amish, are a group of traditionalist Anabaptist Christian church fellowships with Swiss German and Alsatian origins. They are closely related to Mennonite churc ...

community to which he returns to spend the end of the world with after he finds and makes peace with Nico's killer. The novel and series end with Maia about to impact on the far side of the world as Palace and the Amish community sit down to begin a meal that will abruptly end with the unfolding tragedy on the other side of the world, all but Palace and two members of the Amish host family oblivious about their imminent fate. As 2011GV1 begins its entry into the Earth's atmosphere, seconds before impact, Palace ends his story and the series.

Edgar Award nominee

''World of Trouble'' was a finalist for Best Paperback Original in detective fiction's

Edgar Awards The Edgar Allan Poe Awards, popularly called the Edgars, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America, based in New York City. Named after American writer Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849), a pioneer in the genre, the awards honor the bes ...

2015.

References

Novels about impact events Police procedurals Novels set in New Hampshire Novels set in Ohio Existentialist novels American science fiction novels 2014 American novels Quirk Books books {{2010s-sf-novel-stub