Wow! This was an exciting book. I’ve not read one of Mr. Hystad’s books in a while, but I’m very glad I picked this one up and finished it just this morning. This is kind of a murder mystery and science fiction story all rolled into one. We’re mostly going to read about the Granddaughter and Grandson of two very famous astronauts although these are definitely not from our history of space travel.
Helios 15 was the last mission to the moon. It carried three astronauts, Commander Peter Gunn, Colin Swanson and Fred Trell, with the latter remaining in orbit while the two former walked on the Moon. But this was all fifty years ago and ancient history to some not born until after it happened. That’s where Silas Gunn and Kory Valentine (Swanson) come into the story.
Kory has just fled a very difficult marriage. She’s divorced her husband who was very immature and dangerous. Now she’s back home trying to write her second book. She’s already published one book but her idiot husband spent all the money she made from that writing. She doesn’t actually need the money, her parents have already offered to buy her a condo if she wants, but what she wants is to find some peace and quiet to write. That might not happen any time soon.
Silas is the CFO of his father’s furniture business which has been quite successful. His parents live very comfortably and so has Silas for most of his life. He’s not had much adversity come into his life and he knows he’s lucky in that way. Well he was until someone killed his Grandfather, Peter Gunn!
Silas and his Father have found out that his Grandfather, the famous astronaut who had become something of a recluse later in his life, had apparently been murdered right in his own home on the edge of Loon Lake. Both had traveled to the lakeside home to see what the police were doing to catch the murderer. Who would want to kill an old man that didn’t have that long to live anyway?
Silas decides to stay at his Grandfather’s house after the police did their thing. They dusted for prints and did the normal investigative stuff, but even thought the place had been ransacked, they didn’t find many clues. This was a small town police department so they weren’t all that experienced in murders in this community, so they did what they could and told Silas he could stay in the house if he wanted.
Silas began putting the place back together hoping this would help him learn more about his Grandfather which he hardly knew. It seemed that his Peter Gunn had changed when he came back from the Moon. In fact, all three of the astronauts had changed. They went from being strong advocates to exploring the Moon, to trying everything they could to dissuade further Moon explorations or landing. NASA had finally decided that the Moon wouldn’t turn a profit so they started putting their money elsewhere. Silas wondered, as did his Dad, what had changed these men so much after their trip to the Moon.
While going to papers scattered all over Peter’s desk, Silas felt the board beneath his chair squeak as though they were loose. So he knelt down and remove the rug and found a trapdoor. He opened it only to find a safe. This is where his Grandfather must have kept his most secret items. Silas used the electronic door combination that had got him entry into the house and it was the same combination that opened this safe. Inside he found a bag of about $2,000. He wondered why his Grandfather would just leave something like that in plane sight in the safe. Then he looked further in the safe and noticed had a false bottom. He pried that open only to find a bag with a whisky label and something hard inside it. This is where all the trouble begins.
The three astronauts found something on the Moon and they all agreed to never tell anyone about them. They each had a piece of something, but that something was very alien and they thought dangerous. So, these pieces had been divided up with each taking one and putting them away so no one would ever find them. Except Silas now had one. He made the mistake of opening the bag and dropping out the piece of metal on the desk and then he touched it.
This story brings Silas and Kory together along with an FBI Special Agent Waylen Brooks. There will be more killings and there will be more evidence of additional pieces of whatever the astronauts brought back from the Moon. Someone wants all three pieces and is going to get them by any means possible. After their first encounter with the alien objects, Silas and Kory only wish they had never found them.
This exciting story continues in book two, “Shadows of the Earth” available for pre-order on Amazon. It’s should be available on 9 April 2024.