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 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 fiancée 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.