The Defector: Book 2 in the Apollo Murders Series – Hadfield Chris (2023)

Israel, late 1973. As the Yom Kippur War erupts, a state-of-the-art Soviet MiG fighter races over the arid scrublands and suddenly disappears. NASA flight controller and former US Navy test pilot Kaz Zemeckis watches from the ground and is drawn into a high-stakes game of spies, lies and a possible high-level defection spanning three continents. The prize is the secrets of the Soviet Union’s mythical Foxbat MiG-25, the fastest and highest-flying fighter plane in the world and the key to Cold War air supremacy. But every defection carries risk, and Kaz must tread carefully between trust and suspicion. He must bring the defector into the heart of the United States’ most secret test site and hope that, through skill and cunning, the game goes his way. Drawing on Chris Hadfield’s experience as a test pilot in the US Air Force and US Navy and as a Royal Canadian Air Force fighter pilot intercepting armed Soviet bombers in North American airspace, this thriller combines aerial combat, insider detail and political intrigue based on real events. It is the second book in The Apollo Murders series.