"The Apollo Murders", by Chris Hadfield

Fellow fans of Chris Hadfield will love this complex novel that merges many genres from sci-fi to mystery, thriller and historical fiction.

In short words:

The story follows the crew and support staff, beginning from their preparations to go to the moon through to the return of the crew to earth. The thriller aspects are the race during the cold war era and a murder or two.

This is the story of Apollo 18 (in reality, the Apollo program ended with Apollo17)

My thoughts:

During the first part, the narrative gives us enough information to appreciate the complexities of space travel. The language is easy to follow although it is heavy in technical details. I would suspect those versed in the subject would enjoy this story far better than I did. Not saying I hated it I simply found this a bit of a challenge. But, when the story shifted and dived into the mystery things took an about turn and became exciting and worth pursuing with it. You can vividly see in the author visual writing the astronauts experiences when looking at earth from space or peering at the moon. “Apollo Murders” gives us a blend of real-life individuals with fictional ones in a tale deep in sundry details of the early 1970’s space technology. ...on both sides.

This space tale may be fictional but for most part the author’s own experiences as an astronaut and his vast knowledge shines with period accurate detail. The necessary boost to make this story worth reading came from some unexpected twists and turns we have in space and at splash down. Funny moments...

Unfortunately, the experience left me flat and I am left somewhat disappointed. While writing my thoughts I am still on the fence not sure if I like or dislike “Apollo Murders”. So it is up to you now.