Description:
There are things to criticize in this debut thriller about mountain climbing and revolution in 1960s Peru, especially the way the ghost of the International Imitation Hemingway Contest occasionally seems to haunt the prose style. But there is also proof on every page that veteran mountain climber Thomas H. Cosgrove has been there and done that. "The crack was slippery with verglas, a thin black enamel coating," he writes about a flaw in the frightening sheer western face of a mountain called Nevado Viracocha, the highest peak in the Andes. At times, the granitic-ice amalgam choked the crack and had to be hacked away. The work was tedious, at times desperate. The crack was a flaw in the black band, a way upward, but it was no gift.... He climbed with fist jams and careful placement of his feet, toeing into the crack.... The technique was laborious, a constant strain on his shoulders and arms; but if he attempted to straighten his body and stand on his toes parallel to the wall, he invariably came off the rock. Helping us understand what attracts men like himself and his lead character, a charismatic American climber named Jim Bridgman, to such endeavors is only a part of Cosgrove's plan. He also tells a Hemingway-like story of peasants triumphing against all odds over evil fascists. The two halves of the book don't always mesh, but the attempt is brave, the action is gripping, and Bridgman is fully believable in his attempts to conquer the world. --Dick Adler
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