Gates of Mars (The Halo Trilogy, Book One)

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 his beloved kid sister, Essential, disappears on Mars, and he's summoned up-universe to aid the investigation. When Crucial demands to know why 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, he comes face to face with a life-threatening and apathy-ending realization: Essential is a revolutionary.

Blending science-fiction with elements of classic hard-boiled detective stories, Gates of Mars, the first book of The Halo Trilogy, is the eighth novel by Clark Hays and Kathleen McFall.