World of Trouble

World of Trouble

Author	Ben H. Winters
Country	United States
Language	English
Publisher	Quirk Books
Publication date	July 15, 2014
Media type	paperback original, ebook
Pages	320
ISBN	9781594746857

World of Trouble is a 2014 American soft science fiction mystery novel by Ben H. Winters and published by Quirk Books. It is the third and last installment of the Last Policeman trilogy.

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 Indonesian archipelago, which will obliterate humanity and many other species in an extinction event akin to the one in the Yucatan Peninsula that which wiped out the dinosaurs. Former Concord, New Hampshire Police detective Henry Palace, has found sanctuary in the woods of New England with a settlement of other former police officers. With only days left before the end of the world, Palace must solve one last case, to find his sister Nico. Nico is involved with a pseudo-survivalist cult. However, she is murdered in Southern Ohio in the fictional city of Rotary near Zanesville 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, delusional survivalists or religious groups, and an Amish community to which he returns to spend the end of the world with after he finds and makes peace with Nico's killer who turns out to have been forced to do it by Astronaut the leader of the cult her and Nico were involved with after they find out the entire conspiracy was fake and he poisons the rest of the cult in order to keep all the supplies for himself . He meets Jordan, a major character in the past two books who turned out to be an undercover FBI agent who later is shot and killed by Astronaut. 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

In January 2015, it was noted that World of Trouble had become a nominee for Best Paperback Original in detective fiction's Edgar Awards 2015.