The Apollo Murders by Chris Hadfield ~ Book Review

Kaz Zemechkis' dreams of being an astronaut came to an abrupt end when he had an inflight accident that left him with a glass eye.  Now he's a NASA flight controller and has been called in on Apollo 18's final mission to the moon.  But intelligence coming in of a secret Russian spy station has political leaders on edge and has just made the mission way more complicated.  When the suspicious death of one of the crew members occurs, NASA, and Kaz, are on a race against time to get Apollo 18 up and completing it's missions successfully.   With political tension at it's highest on earth, and unexpected occurences in space creating havoc, the Apollo 18 crew faces the uncertainty of no help or rescue and their return home hangs in the balance.  

Beloved Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield has added "fiction author" to his ever growing list of accomplishments with his first fiction novel.  Bringing his expertise as an astronaut, commander, engineer, and fighter pilot, he brings an alternate reality story of the end of the Apollo missions to the moon.  Filled with twists and turns, tension, mystery and politcal intrigue it was a definite page turner.  Being a big fan of reading all sorts of non-fiction books and watching documentaries and movies about the Apollo missions I thoroughly enjoyed this book.  It was fast-paced and had lots of detail of the technical aspects of what a moon mission entails without getting bogged down in those details.  All were significant to moving the story along with understanding for the reader.  It seemed authentic because the author's first hand experience and knowledge.  The story telling was fast paced and the romance in it didn't interfere with what the story was mainly about.  This story would make a great movie.

I rated it a 9.5/10