Red Gold

David Gill, an engineer, has trouble selling food to the hungry, but when, in the early summer of 2075, he arrives in Los Angeles to seal a deal with Robbie Newall, his troubles get very worse, very quickly. He is made an offer he cannot refuse: set up food production facilities in Hellas Planitia, supply a venture run by Robbie Newall, and come back wealthy, or have a contract taken out on him. He needs help from the mercurial Jacqui Tennant, a Space Corps pilot, but she associates Gill with the corporations she so desperately wants to keep off Mars. Gill finds that Newall wants everything: first his wife, then his land, then he discovers Newall is generating a massive stock fraud on Earth and he has to stop it. On Mars, that will be difficult, because Newall has the only guns on Mars, he has men to use them, and they have already killed. A story with crime, action, science, and the harsh Martian environment.