It retells the theft and attempted sale of lunar samples plus a Martian meteorite from a vault at NASA's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center by a cooperative education student assisted by another co-op, an intern, plus an acquaintance.

The story follows Thad Roberts, a University of Utah student and high-achieving NASA co-op in Houston, dreaming of doing great things such as becoming an astronaut; his love interest Rebecca;[2] and his accomplices Sandra[2] and Gordon McWhorter.

In a review in The Globe and Mail, the book is described as "in the pulp-non-fiction genre, crafted with colour-saturated prose and hyperbolic plot points that have its screenplay in view", but was criticized for failing to identify or explore why Roberts undertook the theft in the first place, "other than sex".

[8] A review written for The Daily Beast describes the choice to write from Roberts' perspective as a "narrative pitfall" given he appears to be "somewhat delusional", making it hard to differentiate fact from fiction, and notes that Mezrich takes frequent "creative liberties".

[10] Kirkus Reviews describes the lead-up to the theft as the most interesting part of the book, but the prose as "overheated", and states that Mezrich fails in his efforts to portray Roberts, ultimately a "small-time crook", as a hero.