I distinctly remember watching "Don't look up" and contemplating what I would do if I knew for certain that our world was ending in a few months (and what I'd do if half the population refused to believe it because...fake news. *sigh*). I have a list, I edit it once in a while but it's not a Bucket List. This book reminded me that I need to add "moving to a tropical climate" as a final stop so I can go out with a view of the great blue ocean just before some massive fireball touches down on us. I hate winter....and Autumn so I would rather just bake my way to the apocalypse. The argument for "The Bad Place" gets easier if you tell me it's warm down there.

Okay so first things first, what I found strangely enjoyable was that the names in this book are absolutely bonkers for both people and places. I found myself literally pausing to go "wait huh? Okay cool" whenever a name would pop up. Let's take a gander at people shall we: Henry Palace, Mr Victor France, some guy named Dotseth, Another named Mr Gompers-, and Eric with a K who didn't immediately appear to be the devil as with all Eriks (but wait, turns out he was a bit of a doomsday religionist so...50/50 living up to the K in his name). I spent a quarter of the time reading these names like "Hmmm, is Winters playing a word game, some hidden code because no way does every name sound so ridiculously unreal." And the places. There is a street called School Street but no school, and a neighborhood called Pill Hill and there may have been pills there who knows- come on this has got to be an inside joke between the author and someone.

Anyway, to the Last Homicide Detective in a world that has given up, thrown in the towel and is actively counting down the few short months to annihilation.

To say that this book is a unique approach to the end of the world feels like an understatement. Here is a newly promoted detective, tasked with rubber stamping inevitable suicides as the mental health of the planet's inhabitants takes a beating with the knowledge that it all end in 5 short months. Yet here is detective Henry Palace (focused, careful, neat and has a thousand blue notepads) and he's caught a murder. Nobody cares, dead now or dead in 5 months, the outcome is the same. Murder, Suicide or flaming asteroid with no regard for the planet in its way - the outcome is the same. Everyone winds up dead. So why does he insist on following the motions of "investigating" and asking questions? A part of me thinks it's because he is newly promoted, and it's his first murder case - but nope, I think Palace is wired to follow through in an almost militaristic way. He doesn't just go through the motions passively - he is active (don't mistake that for energy) and thorough.

Perhaps that is how he wants to go out - as the detective who solved the last open murder case in the world.