#BookReview ; Summit by Harry Farthing

The view from 8,848 meters is not always clear...

In the autumn of 1938, Germany’s reichsfuhrer, Heinrich Himmler, is growing frustrated at the British using their regional power in India to block the passage of an SS expedition to Tibet. Determined to spite them, he plots to steal something the British hold dear and have failed for the seventh time that spring to achieve — a first summit of Mount Everest.

Seventy years later, seasoned mountain guide Neil Quinn’s ninth visit to the top of the world’s highest mountain, this time in charge of the sixteen-year-old son of a Long Island billionaire, begins to unravel. As a desperate fight for their lives begins in the freezing air high above Tibet, Quinn stumbles across a clue to a story that challenges everything he thinks he knows about the great mountain.

When the bitter aftermath of Quinn’s disastrous climb turns to violent tragedy in Kathmandu, his discovery pushes him into a relentless journey that takes him from the dangerous heights of Everest to the equally treacherous margins of a new Europe, where history hungers to repeat itself.

Amid a rich and diverse cast of characters, each with their own reason to possess the mystery of his discovery, Neil Quinn has to fight, increasingly desperately, for order and the truth.

Summit is the debut novel of Harry Farthing republished in India by Westland Publishers. The author is a Fellow at the Royal Geographical Society & he has climbed Mont Blanc & the Matterhorn in the Alps, Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Denali in Alaska & Shishapangma & Mount Everest in the Himalayas.

 Summit is an adventurous fiction about 2 stories which are narrated parallel to each other both happening in different points of time but both have 1 thing in common between them & that is the climb to Mount Everest. The book starts with a mountain guide Neil Quinn helping a 17 year old rich lad climb the mountain which will help him make a new record. As they start to descent severe problems start to arise for not just the boy but the whole crew, in the meantime Quinn finds something out which inspires him to dig deep into the history of Mt Everest explorations. Here comes the parallel story, 1938 where a German soldier Gefreiter Josef Becker along with his friends helps Jews escape to Switzerland through the mountain. To know the full story you HAVE to get the book here,

I’ll start by saying that for me its a pretty long book & I took plenty of time to finish it but never did I felt that it was getting boring, so this kinda gives away the direction in which this review is going to be. Since the author has climbed many mountains himself he has successfully set up the scenes as they should be during a climb on a mountain which makes the story even more engrossing. As you’ll move forward with the story it will keep on revealing its layers which I think is what makes an author special. The cover is magnificent, the title is short but apt & the language is easy. The story in all is nothing  I’ve read before. A debut which shouldn’t be missed!