Book Review: The Last Policeman
Sep. 18th, 2025 06:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livingdebSummary - Ben H. Winter's The Last Policeman is about a young police detective (Henry Palace) in Concord, New Hampshire, investigating whether an apparent suicide is really a murder. And also doing a favor for his exasperating sister.
Characters - I really like Palace. He’ll make one or more observations about a person, then often tell you whether he likes the person. And normally he does, which often is better than my first impression and so is fun. And even when he doesn't like the person, he stays on task about figuring out the reality of whether this unlikable guy is the bad guy he's looking for. Some reviewers find him boring, and he probably is one of the more boring characters in the book, but I like characters who are decent and competent and self-aware.
Writing – I quite like some of the writing. Here's an example of a character description:
'Zell, it seems, was a kind of wizard at actuarial math, had a nearly supernatural ability to sort through long columns of demographic data and draw precise conclusions about risk and reward. He was also almost pathologically shy, is what it sounds like: walked around with his eyes on the floor, muttered "hello" and "I'm fine" when pressed, sat in the back of the room at staff meetings, looking at his hands.
"And, boy, when those meetings ended he would always be the first guy out the door," Gombers says. "You got the feeling he was a lot happier at his desk, doing his thing with his calculator and his statistics binders, than he was with the rest of us humans."
I'm scratching away [taking notes], nodding encouragingly and empathetically to keep Gompers talking, and I'm thinking how much I'm starting to like this guy, this Peter Anthony Zell. I like a guy who likes to get his work done.'
My favorite writing is when Palace tells waitress Ruth-Ann, “I’ve got a question for you.” And Ruth-Ann responds, “I have an answer. You go first.” (Will I be able to copy this in real life? I think in real life, people are more likely to say, "Can I ask you a question?")
Genres – It's a police procedural and a mystery, though the type where solving the mystery is not necessarily satisfying. Sometimes things are just sad or tragic all the way around. But (and this is a little bit of a spoiler, but so is the cover illustration) I'd mainly call the genre of this book pre-apocalyptic fiction. There is a very bad thing definitely happening in several months' time. This is the first book of a trilogy, and the bad thing happens a few minutes after the end of the last book.
I have to say it was hard to read this at the same time as I was reading books about pre-apocalyptic Hong Kong (Hong Kong from the Enchantment of the World series and Karen Cheung's memoir The Impossible City). Hong Kong was colonized back when China was probably the most advanced civilization in the world, so advanced that they considered Europeans to be barbarians. Europe wanted to trade with them, hoping to get silk, spices, etc., but the Chinese were not interested in the Europeans' wool, steel, etc. So the English smuggled in opium. As you might guess, trading silk and spices for opium is not great for your economy. China continued resisting, but somehow England kept defeating them at war and colonized Hong Kong, which eventually ended up in the position where it was to be released back to China in 99 years.
A lot can happen in 99 years. During these 99 years, mainland China changed into a Communist dictatorship that Hong Kongers did not want to be a part of. So the last of those 99 years could be called pre-apocalyptic. If you're one of those people who mourns people and places that no longer exist in your city, just know that trend is much worse in Hong Kong. (I also learned there was actually supposed to be a 50-year period after England left and before China took over, but China jumped the gun.)
It's also hard the read this during the current presidential administration. The scene in the book when the bad news comes out hit me hard in the gut. The closest thing I’ve experienced to that feeling was the two times Trump won an election. (Also pre-apocalyptic, but not as bad as in the book. And I like to think there’s still more hope for us than for Hong Kongers as well—we have a larger majority and are still technically a democratic republic.) I had nightmares.
In the book, there is no hope. I mean, brains are creative and so some people found hope, but no.
The publisher solicited essays, short stories, and poetry from their readers about what they would do if they'd found themselves in this pre-apocalyptic situation, but that page appears to no longer exist. As for me: I've no idea. I suspect I'm a head-in-the sand sort. Thinking about it more could yield ideas for how to deal with a mid-life crisis, I mean find meaning in life, but I'm not up for that right now.
I did not enjoy the other two books in the trilogy as much as this first one. The setting gets a lot darker in Countdown City (book 2). The new mystery is interesting, but Palace takes a weirdly long time to get started on it. And there's a deus-ex-machina moment, which I don't enjoy.
In World of Trouble (book 3), the plot revolves around the annoying sister, and Palace keeps ignoring warnings to stay away from various situations, which I didn't like. His obsessions are less cute when they’re 90% of his motivation instead of 50%. Virtually nothing happens in the first half of the book, where he ends up wandering around almost randomly (which turns out to let us see how two new-to-us families are dealing with reality, so that's interesting). But then finally he gets back to his investigation and it's an exciting plot-twist city.
There are books I love and want to read over and over, and there are books that stick with you, and sometimes they're not the same. This is mostly the latter, though I might re-read the first book a few times.
Characters - I really like Palace. He’ll make one or more observations about a person, then often tell you whether he likes the person. And normally he does, which often is better than my first impression and so is fun. And even when he doesn't like the person, he stays on task about figuring out the reality of whether this unlikable guy is the bad guy he's looking for. Some reviewers find him boring, and he probably is one of the more boring characters in the book, but I like characters who are decent and competent and self-aware.
Writing – I quite like some of the writing. Here's an example of a character description:
'Zell, it seems, was a kind of wizard at actuarial math, had a nearly supernatural ability to sort through long columns of demographic data and draw precise conclusions about risk and reward. He was also almost pathologically shy, is what it sounds like: walked around with his eyes on the floor, muttered "hello" and "I'm fine" when pressed, sat in the back of the room at staff meetings, looking at his hands.
"And, boy, when those meetings ended he would always be the first guy out the door," Gombers says. "You got the feeling he was a lot happier at his desk, doing his thing with his calculator and his statistics binders, than he was with the rest of us humans."
I'm scratching away [taking notes], nodding encouragingly and empathetically to keep Gompers talking, and I'm thinking how much I'm starting to like this guy, this Peter Anthony Zell. I like a guy who likes to get his work done.'
My favorite writing is when Palace tells waitress Ruth-Ann, “I’ve got a question for you.” And Ruth-Ann responds, “I have an answer. You go first.” (Will I be able to copy this in real life? I think in real life, people are more likely to say, "Can I ask you a question?")
Genres – It's a police procedural and a mystery, though the type where solving the mystery is not necessarily satisfying. Sometimes things are just sad or tragic all the way around. But (and this is a little bit of a spoiler, but so is the cover illustration) I'd mainly call the genre of this book pre-apocalyptic fiction. There is a very bad thing definitely happening in several months' time. This is the first book of a trilogy, and the bad thing happens a few minutes after the end of the last book.
I have to say it was hard to read this at the same time as I was reading books about pre-apocalyptic Hong Kong (Hong Kong from the Enchantment of the World series and Karen Cheung's memoir The Impossible City). Hong Kong was colonized back when China was probably the most advanced civilization in the world, so advanced that they considered Europeans to be barbarians. Europe wanted to trade with them, hoping to get silk, spices, etc., but the Chinese were not interested in the Europeans' wool, steel, etc. So the English smuggled in opium. As you might guess, trading silk and spices for opium is not great for your economy. China continued resisting, but somehow England kept defeating them at war and colonized Hong Kong, which eventually ended up in the position where it was to be released back to China in 99 years.
A lot can happen in 99 years. During these 99 years, mainland China changed into a Communist dictatorship that Hong Kongers did not want to be a part of. So the last of those 99 years could be called pre-apocalyptic. If you're one of those people who mourns people and places that no longer exist in your city, just know that trend is much worse in Hong Kong. (I also learned there was actually supposed to be a 50-year period after England left and before China took over, but China jumped the gun.)
It's also hard the read this during the current presidential administration. The scene in the book when the bad news comes out hit me hard in the gut. The closest thing I’ve experienced to that feeling was the two times Trump won an election. (Also pre-apocalyptic, but not as bad as in the book. And I like to think there’s still more hope for us than for Hong Kongers as well—we have a larger majority and are still technically a democratic republic.) I had nightmares.
In the book, there is no hope. I mean, brains are creative and so some people found hope, but no.
The publisher solicited essays, short stories, and poetry from their readers about what they would do if they'd found themselves in this pre-apocalyptic situation, but that page appears to no longer exist. As for me: I've no idea. I suspect I'm a head-in-the sand sort. Thinking about it more could yield ideas for how to deal with a mid-life crisis, I mean find meaning in life, but I'm not up for that right now.
I did not enjoy the other two books in the trilogy as much as this first one. The setting gets a lot darker in Countdown City (book 2). The new mystery is interesting, but Palace takes a weirdly long time to get started on it. And there's a deus-ex-machina moment, which I don't enjoy.
In World of Trouble (book 3), the plot revolves around the annoying sister, and Palace keeps ignoring warnings to stay away from various situations, which I didn't like. His obsessions are less cute when they’re 90% of his motivation instead of 50%. Virtually nothing happens in the first half of the book, where he ends up wandering around almost randomly (which turns out to let us see how two new-to-us families are dealing with reality, so that's interesting). But then finally he gets back to his investigation and it's an exciting plot-twist city.
There are books I love and want to read over and over, and there are books that stick with you, and sometimes they're not the same. This is mostly the latter, though I might re-read the first book a few times.
