When it comes to outer space, Jeffrey Kluger knows his stuff. Not only has he written other space novels like APOLLO 13 and APOLLO 8, he consulted on and appeared in the Oscar-nominated Tom Hanks film Apollo 13.

Kluger’s latest book, HOLDOUT, is set mostly in space at the International Space Station and involves a nice mix of thrills, high adventure and ecologically fueled political intrigue that supplies the story with a great moral backdrop. It opens with a sentence that immediately hooks the reader: “Walli Beckwith had no way of knowing that she probably had just under an hour to live.” At that moment Walli is sharing the International Space Station with two male Russian astronauts who are not privy to the serious agenda she has hidden way up the sleeve of her spacesuit.

"HOLDOUT will keep you hanging on right up until the final pages as Kluger deftly manages to keep the high-octane thrills and the threat to the burning rainforest going all the way through to the dramatic finale."

With their mission complete, the trio is preparing to head to the Soyuz ship for their flight back to earth. But Walli surprises her colleagues by stating that she cannot go with them, and there is nothing they can say or do to change her mind. Vasily Zhirov does all he can to convince her otherwise, but he and Walli are Navy graduates, so he respects how strong-willed and stubborn that makes them. As a result, the Russians jump in the Soyuz and return without her. Walli now owns the spotlight of the world’s media, as well as the U.S. and Russian governments, and she plans to use this stage to unveil her agenda that drove her to make this controversial and potentially dangerous decision.

Walli’s “holdout” is in defiance of the program known as the Consolidation, whereby Bobo-deCorte, Brazil’s president, is overseeing the commercialization and destruction of the great resources of the rainforest in a way that would advance the agendas of some greedy corporations and governments. Walli is demanding that this stop before she decides to turn the International Space Station back over to the world governments and come back to Earth.

Meanwhile, Walli’s niece, Sonia, is in the midst of a Brazilian rainforest that is currently burning, and the entire continent is in danger --- which Walli swears she is able to see from her vantage point in space. Walli feels less like a hijacker than a lighthouse keeper --- one who might have refused to leave the lighthouse when she was told, but is a menace to no one. The President of the United States makes a promise to act accordingly and promote her agenda by standing up to the Brazilian president and the corporations behind the Consolidation. However, the U.S. president and government have their own agenda. They understand that if Walli survives, she will be a nuisance. But if she does not, she will be an unstoppable legend.

HOLDOUT will keep you hanging on right up until the final pages as Kluger deftly manages to keep the high-octane thrills and the threat to the burning rainforest going all the way through to the dramatic finale.