The Apollo Murders
1 primary work • 2 total works
Book 2
Israel, late 1973. As the Yom Kippur War flares into life, a state-of-the-art Soviet MIG fighter is racing at breakneck speed over the arid scrublands below . . . and promptly disappears.
NASA Flight Controller and former US Navy test pilot Kaz Zemeckis watches the scene from the ground - and is quickly pulled into a dizzying, high-stakes game of spies, lies and a possible high-level defection that plays out across three continents.
The prize is beyond value: the secrets of the Soviets' mythical 'Foxbat' MiG-25, the fastest, highest-flying fighter plane in the world and the key to Cold War air supremacy. But every defection is double-edged with risk, and Kaz must tread a careful line between trust and suspicion. Ultimately, he must invite the fox into the henhouse - bringing the defector into the heart of the United States' most secret test site - and hope that, with skill and cunning, the game plays out his way.
For Chris Hadfield's second heart-stopping thriller, we move from Space to another rich and exciting part of Chris's CV: his time as a top test pilot in both the US Air Force and the US Navy, and as an RCAF fighter pilot intercepting armed Soviet bombers in North American airspace. Full of insider detail, excitement and political intrigue drawn from real events, The Defector brings us the nerve-shredding rush of aerial combat, as told by one of the world's best fighter pilots.
1975. A new Apollo mission launches into orbit, on course to dock with a Russian Soyuz craft: three NASA astronauts and three cosmonauts, joining to celebrate a new dawn of Soviet-American cooperation.
But a third power is rising, in the race to dominate Space. As NASA Flight Controller Kaz Zemeckis listens in from Earth, three of the six astronauts are killed in a depressurisation accident. And from a remote location in east Asia, a capsule secretly launches with China's very first astronaut aboard, purpose unknown . . .
Full of Cold War intrigue and real historical characters, Final Orbit accelerates to a thrilling conclusion - and brings to life the loneliness, majesty and pure rush of Space flight, with all of the hard-won experience of a writer who is himself one of the most decorated astronauts alive.
Praise for the Apollo Murders series
'A nail-biting Cold War thriller' James Cameron
'An exciting journey to an alternate past' Andy Weir
'Not to be missed' Frederick Forsyth
'Explosive' Gregg Hurwitz
'Exciting, authentic' Linwood Barclay