"S.V. Dáte covered NASA at Cape Canaveral; his knowledge of the space agency -- particularly the shuttle program -- informs this impressive first novel.... The conspiracy is pleasingly complex -- there are a number of effective red herrings -- and he builds to a suspenseful climax aboard the shuttle." -- The Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel   "A fast-paced adventure." -- The Tallahassee Democrat   "Dáte knows his space stuff." -- Martin Cruz Smith   An astronaut has died horribly two hundred miles above the Earth’s surface -- the victim of a fatal equipment flaw ... or something worse. An American hero during the Apollo era, astronaut Santy Santich has spent a decade languishing in the NASA backwaters, waiting for that one last ride that might never come. But a tragic accident during a recent space shuttle mission could give him the second chance he’s long dreamed about ... and the fate he’s always feared. NASA is covering something up, and Santy knows it. But once he’s strapped into the cockpit of Columbia eighteen stories above the ground, it may be too late for him to unravel the twisted threads of politics, betrayal and violent death that are strangling the plagued space agency. Because the countdown has already begun ... and Santy Santich could be blasting off with a killer.   Buy Final Orbit