The Apollo Murders

The year is 1973, an alternate one, and the Cold War is at its most strained. NASA sends up Apollo 18 on a mission it keeps secret. The crew is military, and its orders are to sabotage a Soviet lunar rover and inspect a Russian spy satellite in orbit around the Moon. The satellite is supposed to be unmanned. It is not.

On the ground in Houston, Kazimieras Zemeckis, known as Kaz, is a former astronaut who lost an eye to a bird strike and no longer flies. He holds the crew together from Mission Control while trying to stay ahead of Soviet rivals. Then a deadly accident exposes that some aboard are not the people they claim to be.

This is a techno-thriller built on alternate history, not science fiction. Roughly ninety-five percent of what happens is real, and historical figures such as Alan Shepard and Gene Kranz appear alongside the fictional crew. The author, Chris Hadfield, is a real astronaut, and the book is built on technical detail.

Washington and Moscow can only watch as the two sets of astronauts clash on the surface of the Moon, where no law applies and no rescue can reach. The stakes are a superpower standoff played out far from any police and any easy way home. It is the first book in the Apollo Murders series.