An interplanetary mystery and a searing critique of the current billionaire quest for Mars. Irreverent, funny, hopeful. Plus, giraffes.

"The authors' imaginations again run wild, this time a science fiction/detective series looking at what our lives may hold in the not-too-distant future if everything that can go wrong does go wrong. And they've done it with their trademark undercurrent of humor that lifts an otherwise dreary future into something resembling -- do I dare say -- hope? Their best work to date. And the giraffes? You'll have to read Gates of Mars to find out. I'm already wishing they could write faster." Renee Struthers, East Oregonian newspaper

IN THE AGE OF SURVEILLANCE, HOW CAN A PERSON GO MISSING?

The year is 2187. Crucial Larsen, a veteran of the brutal Consolidation Wars, is working as a labor cop on Earth. The planet is a toxic dump and billions of people are miserable, but so what, it’s none of his business. He’s finally living a good life, or good enough.

But then Essential, his beloved kid sister, disappears on Mars.

When Halo—the all-powerful artificial intelligence overseeing Earth and Mars on behalf of the ruling Five Families—can’t (or won’t) locate his sister, Crucial races up-universe to find her. In the Choke, the frigid, airless expanse outside the luxury billionaire domes, Crucial uncovers a deadly secret from Essential’s past that threatens to shatter his apathetic existence…and both planets.

Blending science-fiction with the classic, hard-boiled detective story, Gates of Mars is a page-turning, futuristic thrill-ride featuring a gritty, irreverent anti-hero—Crucial Larsen. The first book of The Halo Trilogy, Gates of Mars is the eighth novel by award-winning authors Clark Hays and Kathleen McFall.