Ben H. Winters, author, playwright, journalist, and coffee aficionado has been hard at work at his computer and consuming multiple double shot espressos to bring you his latest and greatest novel The Last Policeman (Quirk Books, 2012) which arrives on shelves July 10th. Winters tells the harrowing tale of earth’s impending doom by an asteroid named Maia and one rookie police officer Hank Palace’s attempt to finish his case files and keep the peace. With the stakes rising every day, Palace finds himself searching for his little sister’s missing husband while looking beyond Peter Zell’s suicide to find suspicious circumstances. Not even the end of the world will hinder Hank Palace on the trail of justice. Kirkus Reviews exclaims “A promising kickoff to a planned trilogy. For Winters, the beauty is in the details rather than the plot’s grim main thrust.” Mystery Scene magazine writes “Normally, only Stephen King and Dean Koontz can suck me into a book and not release their stranglehold until I, exhausted from lack of sleep, have turned the last page. Now [Ben Winters] has joined their ranks… THE LAST POLICEMAN is extraordinary—as well as brilliant, surprising, and, considering the circumstances, oddly uplifting.” Amazon has also chosen it for their Editor’s Top Ten Picks for July!

Mr. Winters has earned critically acclaimed success for his middle-grade sequel The Mystery of Everything (Harper Collins, 2011). Kirkus Reviews raves “this zany sequel offers another fast-moving middle-school puzzler with lots of pre- and early teen humor …fans will cheer more mystery and mayhem.” His latest adult horror novel Bedbugs (Quirk Books, 2011) has Publisher’s Weekly declaring it is “gruesome and compelling, fueled by a slow-burn tension, and full of in-jokes about contemporary Brooklyn culture. Winters’s breezy summer read will leave readers compulsively scratching.” Bedbugs is crawling to the silver screen, so stay-tuned horror fans.

And who can forget the books that took over our e-reading shelves! Edgar Award Nominee The Secret Life of Ms. Finkleman (Harper Collins, 2011), Library Journal praises Android Karenina (Quirk Books, 2010) “Creepy, thrilling, and highly enjoyable”, New York Times Bestseller Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters (Quirk Books, 2009), and several Worst-Case Scenario books from cars to the paranormal (Quirk Books, 2009-2011).

Mr. Winters will also be debuting Literally Disturbed, the first of many collections of scary stories for children, published by Price, Stern & Sloan/Penguin in the spring of 2013. Keep a ghoulish eye out for this one, it’s a scream.

- Alicia Rapp