Trouble is an Old-Style Detective's Business in 'Red Planet Noir'

Review: RED PLANET NOIR (Brown Street Press 2009)
Author: D.B. Grady

The science fiction and mystery genres are hardly strangers. Several authors notable in one genre have crossed into the other's territory from time-to-time. (Think sci-fi author Isaac Asimov's "Robot" series or sometime mystery author Sharyn McCrumb's Jay Omega books.) RED PLANET NOIR has the distinction of taking an old-fashioned 1940s-era private eye and placing him in the context of a post-apocalyptic Earth, in the city of New Orleans.

When we meet Mike Sheppard, he's answering the phone "half-drunk, half-dressed, half-asleep and half expecting it to be the phone company reminding me that the bill was past due." At first glance, he's a typical hardboiled private eye. However, as one reads further, it turns out Sheppard is much more than that. He is, in fact, a deeply wounded man. His ex-wife left him (under less-than-ideal circumstances) and he's all over the news for fingering the wrong person in a high-profile case. In short, Sheppard has plenty to feel bad about, and author D.B. Grady conveys his pain with great empathy.

So when Sofia Reed asks Sheppard to investigate her well-connected father's death on Mars, he has little to lose. But he has no idea what he's getting into, either. For as it happens, Mars is under martial law, its economy is dominated by a major corporation, and both the government and corporation have Mob connections. (It's also a "no smoking" planet, which doesn't go over well with the chain-smoking PI.) So, when Sheppard goes to Mars and starts poking around, it rubs a few people the wrong way. And this causes him major problems (ones that dwarf even his perpetual need for a smoke – a rather endearing running gag).

The story is told, for the most part, from the detective's point of view, as most PI novels are. However, Grady inserts a chapter of backstory about the history of Mars and one family in particular that's written with such a heartfelt sense of tragedy, readers may find themselves laughing at Sheppard's ongoing quips one minute and weeping at the tragedy the next. This detour from the narrative is virtually seamless and adds a vivid layer of detail to the Martian context.

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