I purchased this book for my own personal collection. I borrowed the audiobook from the library.
Publisher: Anchor Books / Random House Audio
Published: May 3, 2022
Summary:
IT’S ICE COLD. YOU’RE MILES FROM HELP. AND ONE OF YOU WILL BE NEXT . . .
A high-altitude thriller that will take your breath away—Cecily Wong is on her most dangerous climb yet, miles above sea level. But the elements are nothing compared to one chilling truth: There’s a killer on the mountain.
Journalist Cecily Wong is in over her head. She’s come to Manaslu, the eighth-highest peak in the world, to interview internationally famous mountaineer Charles McVeigh on the last leg of a record-breaking series of summits. She’s given up everything for this story—her boyfriend, her life savings, the peace she’s made with her climbing failures in the past—but it’s a career-making opportunity. It could finally put her life back on track.
But when one climber dies in what everyone else assumes is a freak accident, she fears their expedition is in danger. And by the time a second climber dies, it’s too late to turn back. Stranded on a mountain in one of the most remote regions of the world, she’ll have to battle more than the elements in a harrowing fight for survival against a killer who is picking them off one by one.
My thoughts:
I’ve had this sitting on my shelf for quite a while and finally picked it up. It’s Amy McCulloch’s debut thriller and it certainly had me on the edge of my seat quite a bit!
Never having been on a mountain for any reason other than to ski, I found this book to be quite heavy on the mountaineering terms, though it didn’t necessarily detract from my enjoyment of the book. It did get a little bogged down at times, but I think someone who knows mountaineering would probably appreciate all that more than I did. What I did really enjoy however were the characters and how they were not all that likable – this is probably my favorite aspect in thrillers. I love a good unlikable character, and I felt we got some good ones here!
The tension definitely ramps up in the last quarter of the book and I found myself breathless in anticipation of what was going to happen. All-in-all, this really was a fun book and I look forward to seeing what comes next from this author!
Audio thoughts:
I think the choice for narrator, Katie Leung, was a great one as she really nailed the storytelling quite brilliantly. She was able to infuse just the right amount of tension and emotion into her voice as needed and you really felt the desperation that Cecily was feeling on that mountain. It was a great audiobook!
