Book Review: The Apollo Murders by Chris Hadfield

Published in 2021. Thriller. The Apollo space program was winding down with one more mission to go. Apollo 18 was scheduled to launch in a few months to mark the end of the program. Kaz Zemeckis has been selected as the flight controller of a three-man crew on a mission to the moon. As the crew trains for the launch, Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Tom Hoffman, the mission commander, dies in a helicopter crash, and is replaced by Air Force Major Chad Miller. The training continues uninterrupted, and the mission remains on schedule. However, the crew receives a new task in addition to landing on the moon. They are to disable a Russian spy space station called Almaz, considered a threat to national security. The crew launches and heads into space without incident, but as they approach the Russian space station, not only do they find it is inhabited by two Russian cosmonauts, but it is also armed. Not good. In addition, an investigation into the helicopter crash suggests someone had tampered with the helo, causing the crash. But who?

I enjoyed reading this interesting tale. The author is a former astronaut with extensive experience and lends his expertise to this story. The plot has a number of twists and turns to keep me reading to the end. The last Apollo mission was 17, so this one was really fictional.