Title: The Apollo Murders

Author: Chris Hadfield

Publisher: Mulholland Books 2021

Genre: Mystery

Pages: 480

Rating: 3/5 stars

Reading Challenges: 

1973: a final, top-secret mission to the Moon. Three astronauts in a tiny spaceship, a quarter million miles from home. A quarter million miles from help.

NASA is about to launch Apollo 18. While the mission has been billed as a scientific one, flight controller Kazimieras "Kaz" Zemeckis knows there is a darker objective. Intelligence has discovered a secret Soviet space station spying on America, and Apollo 18 may be the only chance to stop it.

But even as Kaz races to keep the NASA crew one step ahead of their Russian rivals, a deadly accident reveals that not everyone involved is quite who they were thought to be. With political stakes stretched to the breaking point, the White House and the Kremlin can only watch as their astronauts collide on the lunar surface, far beyond the reach of law or rescue.

I went into this book with very high hopes and unfortunately, this did not live up to my expectations. Inside this book is a great political thriller. I loved the bits that dealt with the politics of the space program. I loved the intrigue of spyycraft. And the various characters were intriguing to follow. But then, the actual text gets bogged down in the technical writing. I really did not need to know exactly how Cessna airplane actually works. I imagine that this could have been edited down at least 100 pages to help trim the fat. As it stands, I kept wanting to put it away and read something with a bit faster pace. There’s something here, I just don’t think It completely works as is.

Next up on the TBR pile: