Red Planet Noir is D. B. Grady’s first novel. Grady’s private eye, Mike Sheppard, is hired by the daughter of a murdered colonel. She wants Sheppard to find out who killed her father. The Air Force, who runs the government side of Mars, had declared the death a suicide. Sheppard runs afoul of the Corporation, who runs the business side of things on Mars, and the union of miners. Sheppard is knocked unconscious several times, beaten several times, and manages to shoot a few people. This is pretty much the private eye template from the 1950s except it’s set on Mars. I figured out whodunit early in the novel. Save your money (and your time): skip this one. GRADE: C-
I will!
Good to find a book I can safely miss for once.
😉
Once again, I was lured in by an interesting title and provocative cover, Jeff.
I didn’t realize Mars was as noirish place as earth. Shouldn’t it be RED PLANET ROUGE.
D. B. Grady tries to make Mars as noirish as Earth, Patti. Plenty of double-crosses and mayhem. But the book’s setting could have been Detroit for all the difference it made.
The good thing is you didn’t have to spend very much of your time on it, probably 1.5 hours, right?
In light of his passing, perhaps you’ll try a collection of William Tenn short stories soon?
I read RED PLANET NOIR during the Super Bowl half-time show, Rick. Once again, your intuition is keen: I have those William Tenn NESFA collections and I can’t think of a better way to honor a great writer’s recent death than to read and review his work.
Gee, George, I barely got 2/3 of the way through the newest issue of MacWorld during that halftime show.
RED PLANET NOIR is only 210 pages, Rick. I breezed right through it.