Well, I've been to Mars several times now. I recently read The Martian then saw The Martian movie and cracked open Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles (my fave) and now have finished Robert Sawyer's Red Planet Blues. I'll give you the short review: It's good. It's funny. It's intelligent. It's dramatic. Did I mention how many times I laughed? Sawyer has done an excellent job of recreating the pulp detective story on Mars. I've read several of Rob's books and am always impressed by how he is able to get complex scientific ideas across to simpletons like me and still keep the story rocketing along. He does that again here, of course. But I can tell he had so much fun playing with the language and the stereotypes of the pulp fiction world. And somewhere along the way I actually learned what it would be like to be living under a dome on Mars. Two martian thumbs up.
Oh, and there's no mention of potatoes in this book. In case anyone was wondering.