Eight Million Dollars From Mars!

"Eight Million Dollars From Mars!" by Winston K. Marks is a science fiction story from the 1900s that tells of a criminal named Pauker who murders to steal money and escape to Mars. The story mixes crime, the mind, and space travel challenges. Pauker robs a large sum of money and gets rid of anyone who sees him, but his plan breaks down while he's on a spaceship to Mars. He turns paranoid, afraid that customs will catch him with the stolen cash. The drugs that are meant to ease the space trip make him sick, and he struggles with fever, thirst, and heat. He ends up suffering, far from sure of himself. The book is about how crime weighs on a person's mind and what happens when someone is too ambitious.