Scorched Earth by Clayton Smith

Scorched Earth by Clayton Smith

A MURDER ON MARS LEADS TO HELL ON EARTH

The year is 2188 and the Earth-long-ago abandoned for Mars by the plutocrats-is scorched by poverty, disease and environmental collapse. Meanwhile, the red planet is a flourishing playground for the Five Families who, thanks to Halo-an advanced AI-control everything and everyone on Earth, including Crucial Larsen, a disillusioned labor cop.

The wealthy elite of Mars don't know that on his last trip up-universe, Crucial stumbled onto a secret that could destroy them. Yet, despite fervent pleas from his sister (a leader in the resistance), Crucial believes fighting back against the Five Families is a fool's game destined for failure-or worse. Plus, he never wants to set foot on that damn planet again.

Then Melinda, his long-lost love and a staff scientist on Mars, begs for his help clearing her fianc e of a murder charge. Crucial jumps on the next quantum rocket, hoping maybe this time he can patch things up with Mel. His investigation ultimately leads back to Earth's radiation-blasted sunbelt, where cannibal lizard-people-a climate change mitigation genetic experiment gone terribly wrong-hold the key to a different future, if only Crucial can stay alive long enough to unlock it.

Blending science-fiction with a classic, hard-boiled detective story, Scorched Earth is the second book in The Halo Trilogy, an irreverent series set on post-colonial Mars, and the ninth novel by Clark Hays and Kathleen McFall.

Clayton Smith is the author of the novels Anomaly Flats, Na Akua, and Mabel Gray and the Wizard Who Swallowed the Sun, as well as the short story collections It Came from Anomaly Flats and Pants on Fire: A Collection of Lies, and the short story collections It Came from Anomaly Flats and Pants on Fire: A Collection of Lies.