Jonathan Stein, a bril­liant aero­space exec­u­tive, has spent a life­time deter­mined to accom­plish two tasks: First, to com­plete his father’s unful­filled mis­sion, 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 let­ters. Avi Stein, an Israeli pilot spe­cial­ly cho­sen to com­mand Apol­lo 18, suf­fered a fatal heart attack before launch in 1974. Months from his own mis­sion in 2005 and the birth of his first child, 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, 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 both NASA’s shad­owy past of Nazi sci­en­tists and engi­neers and Dale Lun­den, Avi’s best friend and the last man to walk on the moon.