Mars Adrift

The final chapter of the irreverent interplanetary mystery set in post-colonial plutocratic Mars, now dangerously adrift from Earth. When wealth no longer matters, who survives? Plus, purple kittens and a love story.

THE ONLY PERSON LEFT ALIVE WHO CAN SAVE MARS AND EARTH HAS VANISHED

The year is (still) 2188 and Crucial Larsen is officially done with Mars. Just as he's set to head back to his beloved Earth, meteors crash into the orbital platforms, ravage the luxury domes and knock Halo?the powerful AI running both Mars and Earth?offline. And it's no random cosmic event. A mysterious invading force can redirect space rocks at will and intends to level the Five Families.

The first act of the invaders? Put a bounty on missing Staff Scientist Melinda Hopwire, Crucial's ex-lover?the only person who can find the back-up servers and introduce the empathy hack, the endgame of the beleaguered Resistance. Crucial has to fight and claw his way across the deadly Choke on the red planet armed with only a glue gun, some expired maple rum and Sanders, a malfunctioning cybanism, to find Mel and her synthetic perma-kitten Wisp. If he fails, it's the end for both planets.

Blending science-fiction with a classic hard-boiled detective story, Mars Adrift is the final book in The Halo Trilogy, an interplanetary mystery and a searing critique of the contemporary billionaire quest for Mars. This is the tenth book by Clark Hays and Kathleen McFall.