The Last Policeman

                                    

I first read this two years ago and them promptly forgot it.  Why? Because it was  going to be a trilogy and I was not going to think about it again until I had the complete set beside my reading chair.  And it worked!  I actually did forget most of what happened (though really, after reading at least four hundred books between then and now, I guess it wasn't something I had to put too much effort into...).
I have, since the first time, developed a strong fondness for Ben H. Winters (well...Quirk Publishing in general).  Okay, I can even go as far as saying that I love this guy!  Since my first reading of The Last Policeman I have also read, Bedbugs, and Android Karenin (which was no small feat of adaptation!).  So I feel that I have come to know the author a little better.  Coming back to The Last Policeman was a treat (and considering that I had just finished Farewell, My Lovely by the great Raymond Chandler that's really saying something!).  I really paid attention to all the details, noticed more than I had forgotten, really got to know the protagonist Hank Palace. 
Now that the other two are published Countdown City and World of Trouble, I freely recommend this pre-apocalyptic, police detective series, it's a different spin on chaos, on humanity in a crisis, with a plot that is engrossing, and not too hard to follow.  Getting close to the end of Policeman I really felt the excitement, the build up to the finale which was not disappointing and it left, naturally, questions which I look forward to getting the answers to in the next two installments.

My Apologies...

It has been a difficult couple of months, starting with my laptop frying and losing all of my notes for the  many books I had read and not posted yet.  It was a severe blow.  Then about the same time I was working on filing a grievance against someone for harrassment at work,  which was excruciating to say the least.  Then I went to Australia for the summer, and found out that my mother had passed away six years previously and that we (my brothers and myself) were not to be notified as "she hated the lot of us".   This is where you can see why I have always been able to sympathise with my characters in books with terrible parents...
I had made a few attempts when I was a teenager to free myself from the influence of my mother, and someone at the time asked me how I would feel  if she died.  Well I can honestly answer that now.  Terrible.  I feel terrible.  But it is not  for the reasons that you might think.   I do not feel regret that I kept her from my life for the past twenty three years... she was toxic and I could not allow her to come anywhere near my family.  My heart is broken.  I mourn for something I never had, never could have had, because no matter how well I have lived my life, or suceeded in things that my own mother failed tragically in... she still would not have loved me.
So it has been a stressful couple of months, but I am through the other side of my troubles now, and ready to start talking again about one of my great loves...books!  That is not to say that there is still a great deal of sadness here in my heart, like I said, I am broken, but I think it might perhaps make me more compassionate in what I read.  My world view has changed.  I have a hankering for something profound to dig in to.  We will see.  I promise a new entry soon.  Have a nice weekend!