The Apollo Murders

Written by former Canadian astronaut and one-time commander of the International Space Station, Chris Hadfield, this thriller is set during the Cold War space race of the 1970's between Russia and the United States. It is full of interesting technical details about planes, rockets, space capsules and manned flight operations.  It includes lots of real people, places and events and an author's note clarifies what is fiction. Hadfield also worked as CAPCOM--capsule communicator--for 25 shuttle missions and as NASA's director of operations in Russia, so he has both front line and administrative experience with the U.S. and Russian programs. It is a wide ranging story with asides about people who salvage discarded rockets in Russia to support their families, the origins of the universe, and the horror of motion sickness induced vomiting inside an enclosed space suit. The premise is that the Russians have launched a new space station with enormously enhanced spy capabilities that would impinge on the secrecy of U.S. space efforts--i.e., creates a threat to "U.S. security." The final (fictional) Apollo 18 moonshot is re-tasked to investigate and disable the station in earth orbit before cosmonauts can be sent up to retrieve pictures. The astronauts on this mission are all former military. Additionally, the final destination on the moon is altered to land near a Russian moon rover to find out why the Russians are exploring that particular spot. The real drama arises even before blast off when the mission's commander is killed in a helicopter crash that turns out to be sabotage. I literally had a hard time putting this book down at many points. I thought the ending was a little abrupt and The New Scientist said, "the story comes across as improbable but not implausible." It still made for a compelling read. Kirkus criticizes the amount of technical detail in the early chapter but concludes, "Space nerds will geek out, and everyone else eventually gets a pretty good ride." Publishers Weekly, however, feels the details are important; "His mastery of the details enables him to generate high levels of tension from just a description of a welding error, which cascades into something significant. This is an intelligent and surprising nail-biter..."