The Apocalypse Cop trilogy continues with the second book in the series, Countdown City.

"Every choice is a choice to give up, with every step you leave behind a thousand dead possible universes."

Seventy-seven days to the apocalypse. An asteroid named 2011GV1 will hit the little blue dot in space, our earth, our world, and life will end. Detective Hank Palace is out of work, his days of solving murders and mysteries are over. Until a friend from his past asks him to find her missing husband.

Brett Cavatone has disappeared without a trace, but his wife Martha is sure he would never do such a thing. They promised to be together until it was all over and Brett is not a man to go back on his word, everyone says so.

Hank Palace will follow the clues in this investigation to the Free Republic, a college campus-turned-Free Republic, where refugees trying to postpone their deaths face the same inhumanity they face in these apocalyptic days. In a society falling apart, Palace needs to find a man who will never break his word and bring him back to his wife. But why would he do that? Why spend his short time on earth chasing after such things?

The Philip K. Dick Award-winning second volume of the Apocalypse Cop trilogy, The City of Countdown, presents another mystery on the brink of apocalypse, and Hank Palace once again confronts the question beyond "who is the killer?" What do we humans owe each other? Do our promises mean anything in a collapsing civilization? Why do we continue to live knowing the end?