108 reviews for:

The Defector

Chris Hadfield

3.89 AVERAGE

adventurous mysterious fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Flaws of characters a main focus: No
adventurous medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

The pacing is awful. There is minimal tension until the final 70 pages, and even then the stakes feel weirdly low. The dialogue is wooden and filled with jargon, as with the previous book in the series. Technical details, like the precise model of anti-aircraft missile used etc, might be interesting to aviation fiends or military history buffs but for everyone else (me) it’s just boring filler.
adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Great book and I can tell a lot of effort was put into getting the facts right. The piloting/astronaut scenes were the best portions of the book, it was easy to tell that the author was most interested in those portions. It is a good book, but I wouldn’t say that it is a frontrunner of the genre. It is a very stereotypical military thriller.
adventurous mysterious tense fast-paced
adventurous tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: No
adventurous informative mysterious medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: No
adventurous tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: No
adventurous mysterious tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated
mysterious tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

The Sequel to The Apollo Murders, still set in the 70s set in the Nasa/Military area.  Zak is spending a holiday in Israel and during his holiday a Russian fighter pilot fakes a collision when he is shot at and lands at a airport asking to defect to USA just as Israel is attacked by Syria and Egypt.

The pilot is sent to America but the Russians belief he is dead and he reveals all he knows about the USSRs capabilities and they even get their hands on his plane.  But little do the Americans know that he is hiding things and has plans that he must not get caught trying to implement.