Short description
The new blockbuster from the international Number One bestselling author
Long description
This is the story of a man who loved two women, and one of them killed him. Some people have dreams that are so outrageous that if they were to achieve them, their place in history would be guaranteed. Francis Drake, Robert Scott, Percy Fawcett, Charles Lindbergh, Amy Johnson, Edmund Hillary and Neil Armstrong are among such individuals. But what if one man had such a dream, and when he'd achieved it, there was no proof that he had fulfilled his ambition? Paths of Glory , is the story of such a man. But not until you've turned the last page of this extraordinary novel, will you be able to decide if George Mallory should be added to this list of legends, because if he were, another name would have to be removed.
Review
Fictionalized account of the mountain climber who may or may not have been the first man to conquer Everest.George Mallory (1886 - 1924) was an Englishman very much of his time: a history teacher who enlisted in the Great War when two of his pupils were reported killed, a faithful husband to his devoted wife Ruth, a team member loyal to his mates despite their personal failings. What set him apart were his utter fearlessness and his extraordinary gift for climbing. When he vanished with fellow climber Andrew Irvine during a 1924 assault on Everest, some 30 years before Sir Edmund Hillary's successful ascent, a rapt public was divided over whether he'd reached the peak before his presumed death, a controversy the discovery of his frozen body in 1999 did nothing to resolve. Archer (Prisoner of Birth, 2008, etc.) turns Mallory's life into the tale of an unimpeachably good and heroic man. His most interesting battles aren't with the elements, but with petty bureaucrats who scheme against George Finch, the caddish but accomplished Australian climber Mallory wants as his partner, and with himself, torn between his responsibilities to his long-suffering wife back home and his desire to climb Everest because it is there. Mountaineering technocrats can look elsewhere: The mountaineering sequences are marred by Archer's apparent ignorance of the mechanics of climbing, reduced here to the debate about whether it's cheating to use bottled oxygen. Nor are the characters especially compelling, since the author seems to feel no need to flesh out real-life figures.A bland yarn in the Boys' Own Adventure mold about an old-fashioned hero from the days when the Empire demanded nothing less. (Kirkus Reviews)