The Astronaut's Son
A Novel
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
Thriller and suspense Foreword Indies Winner! 2019 Connecticut Book Awards Finalist! ? On the eve of the 50th Anniversary of the Moon Landing comes a novel in which a Jewish astronaut must reassess his moral compass when forced to confront NASA's early collaboration with Nazis and the role it may have played in his father's death. Jonathan Stein, the CEO of Apollo Aeronautics, is an ambitious polymath who has spent a lifetime determined to accomplish two tasks: First, to complete his father's unfulfilled mission to reach the moon, and second, to forge a relationship with the reclusive Neil Armstrong. Despite a heart condition, he's on the verge of his first goal, but has gotten nowhere with the second. Armstrong has never responded to any of Jonathan's dozens of letters. Avi Stein was an Israeli pilot specially chosen to command Apollo 18 in 1974, but suffered a fatal heart attack before launch. Now, months from being able to realize his father's dream, Jonathan discovers a "lunar hoax" conspiracy website offering a disturbing reason for Armstrong's silence: He knows Jonathan's father didn't die of natural causes. While researching his father's last days in the National Archives, Jonathan expects to confirm the official cause of death, but what he uncovers instead is a motive for murder. To get to the truth, Jonathan must confront Dale Lunden, his father's best friend and the last man on the moon.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Seigel's solid debut provides an intriguing and plausible variant on moon landing conspiracy theories. In 2004, Jonathan Stein announces that his private company, Apollo Aeronautics, aims to launch a manned mission to the moon led by Jonathan himself. Decades earlier, Jonathan's Israeli astronaut father, Avi, was part of the flight crew for NASA's last moon expedition, but he died from a heart attack before launch. Shortly after Jonathan's announcement, his wife finds an online posting by someone identified only as Cassandra, who alleges that Avi was actually the victim of a murder plot. The conspiracy was initiated by Nazi scientists working on the U.S. space program who could not stomach a Jew being on one of the rockets they had developed. Though Jonathan initially believes that Cassandra is trying to turn Avi into a "pseudo-martyr for a band of crackpots," his digging leads him in a different direction. Equally strong on plotting and characterization, Seigel does better than many other thriller writers in making his lead's pain and uncertainty about the past palpable.
