2019 Connecticut Book Awards Finalist

Tom Seigel's debut novel, The Astronaut's Son, has been selected as a finalist in the 2019 Connecticut Book Awards. Celebrations are scheduled for 3:00 PM on October 20 at the Hartford Public Library, 500 Main Street, Hartford.

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.

About the Author: Tom Seigel has served as both Deputy Chief and Chief of the Justice Department’s Brooklyn Organized Crime Strike Force, prosecuting members and associates of La Cosa Nostra. After twenty years as a litigator, Tom earned an MFA in fiction writing from Fairfield University. The Astronaut’s Son is his debut novel.