The Ascent of D-13

This book starts with a hijacking. A carefully chosen UN plane is traveling across Europe to test a new top secret spy camera when one of the crew pulls a gun and announces that they are going to Russia. The copilot gets a chance to get the gun away from him just before they are ready to land and the plane turns around. Right at the Turkish border the Russians shoot down the plane. It crashes on a remote mountain. Entirely by chance an internationally renowned mountain climber happens to be in Turkey at that very moment! (all right, the book has to start somewhere) The English diplomat asks him would he please climb up there and return that camera? Some major mountain climbing drama ensues. I am not a climber; in fact, I'm not so crazy about hanging off a cliff tied to a rope. No fun for me. But I still enjoyed this book. Maybe it helps that I have some mountains right outside my window, but I found it pretty easy to get into the story. What made the book a little odd to read is that so much has happened since the book was written. Satellites make much of the story out of date, although a major blizzard will still obscure things. GPS devices mean that pinpointing an exact location is entirely possible. But the real drama - will they make it off the mountain - that hasn't changed. When it comes to the roughest peaks on earth, it's still man vs. element, and the element still wins most of the time. Not perfect, but I liked it well enough that I'm going to look for another by this author.