Mars Murder Mystery Series

Yep, you got it. During National Novel Writing Month, I’m working on a hard scifi murder mystery set on Mars in 2218, Earth years. Book one is outlined, and book two has a premise and some characters. Book three? Beats me. Maybe none. Right now, I am itching to start writing book one.

I’ve been wanting to do a hard sci fi novel for years, and I’m taking this opportunity to try it on for size. By making it a murder mystery, I’m tapping into a genre I know well so I can bridge to the new-to-me genre.

For the non-sci fi folks out there, there is soft and hard sci fi. Soft is when the science takes a back seat. In hard sci fi, the science is upfront and prominent. For soft sci fi, the author can take a lot of deviations from real science, sometimes it feels like fantasy. Hard sci fi, however, is rooted in the science we know. And though the author can (and indeed should) extrapolate from current science, still there are traceable science elements in hard sci fi.

Think the “Mars trilogy” of Kim Stanley Robinson, Larry K. Collins' McGregor Chronicles, or Andy Weir’s The Martian. Real science was the jumping off point in all these books, and then they extended the science to what could be true in the future. Of course, the story line must be engaging. A novel filled with science-only wouldn’t be a novel.

Striking the balance, addressing real life conundrums posed by the science, and informing the reader about real science makes writing hard sci fi daunting. But, oh, so much fun! (I hope.)

My protag is new-to-Mars Police Chief (Alexandra Rhebekkah, Iskos) who goes by the name Ari. Chief Ari was Executive Assistant Chief of Police in Phoenix before applying (under pressure) for a transfer to the U.S. Mars colony, New Washington. She is escaping some personal issues, and Mars seems like it will be far enough away to resolve them.

She is faced with a death before she even exits the shuttle to the planet’s surface. Her immediate world is populated with no detectives and only two police officers for the territory of the United States colony. Dr. Robb Otts, the colony’s doctor/dentist/surgeon/medical examiner and more becomes a close friend whose mind challenges her to look at alternatives.

What happened to Dr. Anh Nguyen, the colony’s climatologist and acting-geologist? Suicide? Murder? If murder, who in this ultimate closed door mystery setting, could be responsible? The mining executive? A jealous lover? A scientist who disagreed with her findings? The politician aiming to secede from the U.S.A. and  govern the colony? A rogue AI miner? The space jockey who shuttles passengers from space station to the surface? Or is it someone else?

And are the AI miner robots developing sentience? Is that why the mining company erected a force field around the mine sites? Add in the growing unrest with being a colony instead of a recognized separate state, and you have a lot of issues about freedom, independence, and legal rights emerging.

When Chief Ari discovers that another likely-murder happened a month before her arrival, she starts to fear that she won’t be able to handle the investigation. How come nobody told her that collecting forensic evidence on Mars was a whole different ball game? And that there are a lot of ways to murder people on Mars.