involved. To his considerable credit, The Apollo Murders will likely remind readers of the best of Tom Clancy’s novels, such as The Hunt for Red October (which was so rich in technical detail that the author was actually investigated by U.S. security forces, wondering how he had so much information). The details, however, never bog down the book: The ApolloMurders is a thrilling pageturner that will keep readers guessing until the very end, a mystery, a survival story, a novel of political intrigue, and a breathtaking glimpse into space (from one who has been there), all rolled into one. As a technician says, partway through the book, “Let’s be ready, people. This is an Apollo like no other.” Book Review by Robert Wiersema The Apollo Murders by Chris Hadfield It also never happened. While the United States fully planned both the Apollo 18 and 19 missions – to the point that much of the equipment for those flights was actually built – the program was scrapped by the Nixon White House, owing to budgetary issues and concerns over safety, following the near-disastrous flight of Apollo 13. But, as any fiction writer, con man, or inveterate liar will tell you, never let the truth get in the way of a good story. AndThe Apollo Murders is a darn good one. Chris Hadfield – yes, that Chris Hadfield, Canada’ foremost astronaut-celebrity, whose zero-gravity rendition of David Bowie’s Space Oddity has almost 50 million views on YouTube – has crafted in The Apollo Murders a powerful and believable alternate history, a thrilling extension of the all-tooreal Space Race. Hadfield weaves together real-life characters and elements including the Russian satellite and lunar rover, both of which actually existed (there’s a handy appendix in the back of the book to somewhat clarify the line between truth and fiction), with imagined characters and situations, resulting in a novel just wild enough to almost be true. While The Apollo Murders shifts easily among characters and places – including the interior of the capsule, mission control, Soviet churches, the Pentagon, the White House and the Kremlin – the novel focuses primarily on Kaz Zemeckis, a Navy fighter pilot who loses an eye in a flight accident in the novel’s introduction, shattering his dreams of being an astronaut himself. Years later, having retrained, he serves as a military liaison for Apollo 18. Well, until things start to go awry… From his personal knowledge of space travel, Hadfield writes compellingly of the experience, from the G-forces of launch to the effects which those forces have on the astronauts’ intestines (apparently, space capsules were quite smelly − who knew?). He also writes convincingly of the technology In April 1973, NASA launched Apollo 18, the first fully military flight of the Apollo space program. The mission was twofold: to reconnoitre with a new Soviet satellite (a specialized, high-quality camera, perfect for spying on American forces); and to try and figure out just what the Russians were looking for with their Lunokhod rover, which they had landed, in secret, in the Sea of Serenity. The mission marked the first extraterrestrial confrontation between the superpowers, an extension of the Cold War beyond the surly bonds of Earth. CSANews | WINTER 2021 | 43
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