The Defector by Chris Hadfield returns us to the world of The Apollo Murders with Kaz Zemeckis. About eight months after the rather dangerous events surrounding the Apollo 18 launch, Kaz and Laura are on vacation visiting his extended family in Israel. While on the beach there one day he sees something rather interesting, what appears to be the trail from a plane that might be coming down. Suspicious of the circumstances and thinking the plane might be a Soviet spy plane he rushes to the embassy and calls it in. As things start escalating in Israel, Kaz ends up watching over the plane as it travels back to the US. What is interesting is that it wasn’t shot down but purposely landed discretely as the pilot is claiming to want to defect. Now Kaz is in charge of learning all he can about both the pilot and the plane at one of the most top secret bases in the US, area 51. Something that potentially gets tricky when Soviet cosmonauts arrive in Houston as part of the preparation for a joint space-flight with one of the cosmonauts being Svetlana.
This book was definitely intriguing in that it dealt with a pretty plausible premise, for the most part, even as it took it in some interesting directions. It made for a pretty good story though and was just the right blend of intrigue and action with nice levels of suspense. What I found interesting was how it used alternate perspectives and flashbacks to allow the reader to have a pretty good understanding of what was actually happening long before poor Kaz did. I honestly felt sorry for the guy with how it all played out. There was one aspect of this that I didn’t necessarily like, which was that the timeline of the flashbacks wasn’t always very clear and it wasn’t always clearly indicated that they were flashbacks. I kept having to go back and double check things to make sure I had my timeline correct as I was reading. It wasn’t necessarily a huge issue but it was minorly annoying at times to deal with. The one thing I was impressed with was the overall realism of the story. Much like the first one you can tell the author either did immense amounts of research or is very familiar with the topics being dealt with. In this case it was probably a mix of the two but there was nothing that seemed incorrect or out of place, at least not enough to disturb my reading or jar me out of the story. That happens way more frequently than I like as I do tend to notice that kind of thing. Definitely an enjoyable read and one that I am happy giving four out of five stars.
This would be a pretty good example of a historical thriller so if you are the type of reader who tends to enjoy either historical fiction or thrillers then this may be the book for you. It may also appeal to those who are interested in books about the Space Race or the Cold War or about planes and military history in general, as long as you keep in mind this is an alternate series of events. Because of the content it does contain occasional violence and gruesome content, more so towards the end than the beginning. It isn’t overly bad though and should not be a problem for most readers. I would feel pretty confident in saying that this could potentially be read by readers as young as fifteen or sixteen without any major issues. Keep in mind this is the second book and it will make more sense if you have read the previous book in the series. Hope you will consider trying it out and if you do feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.