Schools in the early 22nd century teach that the big corporations provide all necessary services solely for the betterment of society, under the benevolent guidance of the Federation Council. When Fiona Bolton, an expert in sonic viewing, watches her husband being murdered while uncovering corporate malfeasance, she wants justice. Instead, she is dragged into the tar-baby of the dark side of corporate behaviour. Jonathon Munro so wants to be important in a corporation, but his only talent seems to lie within that dark side. Sharon Galloway has developed the most advanced excavating device known, and she hates and despises Jonathon Munro. Then when Grigori Timoshenko decides to form an expedition to settle for once and for all whether the morphing image of a battered butte in the Cydonian Mensae region of Mars was due to alien activity, these three must be included in the party. With hidden agendas and attempts at murder on a planet with no air, the gloss of visiting another planet soon wears thin. A story of corruption, disdain for both law and morals, the maverick, and the nature of Mars, A Face on Cydonia gives action and realistic science aplenty. It is the first in the trilogy First Contact, which focuses on the corrupting influence that drags those who yield to the dark side of power to ever increasing depths.