Match Book
The Last Policeman
Ben H. Winters
2012 · Science fiction
How it reads
The Last Policeman is science fiction (apocalyptic detective fiction, specifically), and its dominant mood is tense. The suspense is the kind you feel in your shoulders. It moves fast: plot-driven and hard to put down, the kind of book that carries you along even when you're tired.
It's set in a big city setting, in the future, told in the third person, staying close to one character. Its central concerns are survival, justice and loss and grief. In weight it sits in the middle: substantial without being heavy going.
It opens a series. The ending is bittersweet: it resolves, but at a price. It's well known, the kind of book most keen readers have heard of.
Pick it up if…
- you're in the mood for something tense
- you want a book that pulls you through
- you're drawn to stories about survival
Maybe not if…
- you need something cosy or heartwarming
- you want dense, lingering prose
All 15 dimensions
- Genre
- science fiction
- Author gender
- male
- Author experience
- established
- Setting: place
- big city
- Setting: time
- future
- Mood / feeling
- tense
- Pace
- fast paced
- Tone / weight
- balanced
- Length
- medium
- Narrative style
- third person, one viewpoint
- Publication era
- recent
- Popularity
- well known
- Series vs standalone
- first in a series
- Themes
- survival, justice, loss and grief
- Ending style
- bittersweet
What these mean: the 15 dimensions of a book.
Books with a similar reading
The closest books in Match Book's catalogue across the same dimensions, and what they share.
- Lock InJohn ScalziShares: science fiction, tense mood, balanced tone, fast paced
SteelheartBrandon SandersonShares: science fiction, tense mood, balanced tone, fast paced- InfluxDaniel SuarezShares: science fiction, tense mood, balanced tone, fast paced
Blackfish City: A NovelSam J. MillerShares: science fiction, tense mood, balanced tone, fast paced- Rule 34Charles StrossShares: science fiction, tense mood, balanced tone, fast paced
The Windup GirlPaolo BacigalupiShares: science fiction, tense mood, balanced tone, fast paced
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