The world is about to end – would you investigate a murder?  An asteroid is about to collide with the Earth in six months time, and wipe us all out. Would you give up your life and go of to fulfill your ambition, take solace in drunken pleasure, live in fear, or solidly carry on doing what you do? Detective Hank Palace faces this stark question, and as others walk away from their jobs he carries on. A murder has been committed, and it is his job to solve it – problem is, none of his colleges believe it is a murder, and neither does the coroner – just Hank’s instinct, and in a city that has a dozen or more suicides a week even that might be wrong. What’s the point in solving murders if we are all going to die anyway? As Hank investigates further, undercurrents begin to surface –who was the victim obsessed with the asteroid? Did he know something about it that the rest of us don’t? Is there a conspiracy afoot? In a world where politicians have run of to the Bahamas for one last sun-drenched beach holiday, where the US Army runs internment camps…