He even spoke with a former NASA astronaut, Rusty Schweickart, who tried to dissuade him from writing the novel.

In the course of writing the trilogy, the author met with police officers, scientists, sociologists, economists, and other experts who provided the necessary background to establish a realistic world for his story.

“I loved the idea of watching what's happening as things are unraveling, before the big event, and seeing how one disciplined and decent guy is handling everything.” Winters' premise – a pre-apocalyptic breakdown of society in the shadow of a world-ending asteroid strike –required extensive research. “Obviously The Road is an astonishing book, but that was never my interest, to do a mystery after the end of the world,” said Winters. The trilogy charts a bleak course, and readers unfamiliar with Winters could be forgiven for placing it alongside dystopian works like Adam Sternberg's recent, gritty crime-thriller Shovel Ready or The Road, Cormac McCarthy's post-apocalyptic classic. The novel's sequel, Countdown City, followed in 2013. The town is rife with suicides, one of many responses to the news that Asteroid 2011GV, or Maia, as it's been named, will smash into the planet near Indonesia in four months' time. Hank investigates an apparent suicide that he suspects may be murder, over the objections of his fellow cops who think he is wasting his time. The Last Policeman, released in 2012 by Quirk Books, tells the story of Hank Palace, newly promoted detective with the Concord, New Hampshire, police force. The best-selling author has just released World of Trouble, the final book in his critically-acclaimed Last Policeman trilogy, which documents a young detective's final days before a giant world-destroying asteroid hits Earth.

World of trouble by ben h winters