The Apollo Murders: Book 1 in the Apollo Murders Series

This well written novel kept me thinking back to the possibilities of this happening back during the Cold War. I loved the way real life astronauts were inter woven into the action. The characters of Kaz and Svetlana were very life like.Well done Chris, hope to see another novel written in the same vein bein published very soon.

It's an interesting premise. The year is 1973, and Apollo 18 is about to be launched. In reality, Apollo 17 was the last to fly. Russia has landed a rover on the Moon and something unusual has been spotted, and they also have a space station in orbit which contains a weapon. NASA launch Apollo 18 with a view to take out the space station, land on the Moon, sabotage the rover, and find whatever it had spotted.It's a fast-paced read but feels extremely silly, and most of the characters are cardboard cutouts. As soon as one character appears you just know they'll turn out to be bad. There's also pretty much no "hero" to root for. As for the "murders" element of the title, this is a complete misnomer.Elements of the book are based on fact, as the note at the end explains, but on the whole this was the most disappointing book I read on holiday this year.

Actual astronaut Chris Hadfield used the well known structure of an Apollo moon mission as the scaffolding for his entertaining Cold War thriller. It is not so much a murder mystery, since the identity of the killer is telegraphed quite early in the action. Sadly missing is a deeper dive into the experiences that motivate the villain. This might have been preferable to the superfluous biographical detail of Kaz Zemeckis, the one eyed pilot and military liaison officer who provides much of the non astronaut viewpoint (plus being the purveyor of periodic infodumps). The mix of fictional and actual historical personages works well. That Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger were behind the scenes in the perversion of good sense which is the fictional 1973 mission of Apollo 18 (and the last) is entirely believable. Though sometimes, truth can be stranger than fiction, since it is true that the USSR actually installed a machine gun on one of its spacecraft!It is a good propulsive read, the pacing and tension building to a decent if slightly overblown splashdown climax (surprisingly, there was no shark to be jumped in the waters of the Pacific). There are some loose ends left fraying, so i wonder if a sequel might be in the works.

This book certainly kept my attention. Loved the interaction with real people, loved the detail about the mission (including those checklists - great reminder about how basic the equipment was that they worked in space with). The interactions between the US and Russia felt spot on for the era. Loved most of the characterisations but my only gripe was you never really understood the motivation of the 'villain' or even how he got where he was with his background. I was lucky enough to get this as a kindle daily deal but it was already on my wishlist. I would certainly be willing to read more like this.

I had seen Commander Chris Hadfield on BBC when he presented "Do you have what it takes?", a selection program for future astronauts, so I was fascinated to see that he had written a novel, which I suspect is a product of the lockdown. Commander Hadfield is a former test pilot and a mission commander on space missions.I was not disappointed, this book is a gripping thriller! The book explores a parallel universe where Apollo 18 flew as a military mission. It is not a "who dunnit" despite the title. I found the book very difficult to put down.What is completely unique about the book is that Commander Hadfield gives an extremely detailed and realistic description of space flight. I have not flown fast jets, or a rocket, but I did my basic flight training our of the Space Center Executive Airport near Cape Canaveral, and my instrument training in Panama City, Florida, and I found his descriptions of various flights in these areas to be highly accurate. Anyone not interested in aviation might find the level of detail in the book, including extracts of various checklists, to be a little irritating - I loved it! At the end of the back he reveals that many of the charactors are based on real people, but surely not all, I hope!A minor problem with the book is that some of the dialogue in the book is in Russian and Commander Hadfield adds a transliteration of the Russian spoken before a translation of the dialogue into English. I worked in Moscow and know a little Russian and would have far preferred to have the Cyrillic rather than the rather loose transliteration. I suspect most readers will find the transliteration tiresome and wonder why it was added.This book is recommended for anyone interested in space travel or aviation who likes a good thriller. It would be a super Christmas present for any teenager dreaming of being a test pilot and an astronaut.Well done Commander Hadfield! I hope we see a follow up in due course.

This is a splendid book from every point of view.It's probably best that Chris wrote this *after* being commander of the ISS, otherwise his fellow crew members may have felt a little nervous :)I particularly appreciated the notes at the end which give some detail on all the places, people and things in the story which are (or were) genuine, and which people who weren't around in the Apollo era may not be aware of.It's a splendid work of (fortunately) fiction, highly recommended.