The Apollo Murders

Chris Hadfield

Quercus, £20

Thanks to authors such as Ian Fleming and John le Carré, we are all familiar with gripping Cold War thrillers, but The Apollo Murders has an extra string to its bow – its Canadian author Chris Hadfield was an astronaut who flew two Space Shuttle missions and served as commander of the International Space Station.

The action in his debut novel The Apollo Murders moves between America, Russia, space and the moon in the 1970s.

The Russians have launched a powerful spy satellite which the Americans plan to nobble while ostensibly on their way to a moon landing.

Meanwhile, the Russians have discovered unexpected radioactivity on the moon which they believe could provide the energy they need to sustain a lunar colony.

Through their spy networks, both sides know something of what the other side is planning, but by no means everything.

Throw in psychopathic American astronaut Chad Miller and efficient Russian cosmonaut Svetlana Gromova, and the scene is set for unpredictable mayhem in space, with walk-on parts on planet Earth for President Richard Nixon and KGB head Yuri Andropov.

Hadfield’s descriptions of space-shots and lunar modules are vivid and engaging, but his accounts of flight procedures and military protocol, while informative and fascinating, slow down the action.

The story only really takes off around 150 pages in. But, after that, it is action every step of the way. This slowly turns into a gripping novel – but I suspect that one day it will make an even better film.