Product Description

The dramatic true story of four climbers kidnapped by Islamic guerrillas in the mountains of Central Asia - and their daring escape. In August 2000, four young American climbers were shot at and held hostage by Islamic militants in the remote mountains of Kyrgyzstan; after six terrifying days, they made the difficult decision to kill their guard by pushing him off the mountain. When he fell from the cliff, they literally ran for their lives - eventually, after many dangerous encounters, they reached safety, exhausted and traumatised by their experiences. But it was not the end of the story; a year later the guerrilla they thought they had killed turned up alive...Greg Child, a leading mountaineering writer, has had full and exclusive access to the four climbers, three men and one woman, and much of their extraordinary story is told in their own words. The book looks set to become a classic of mountaineering adventure.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1414934 in Books
• Published on: 2002-08-29
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 304 pages

About the Author
Greg Child is a veteran mountaineer and author of a number of books, including Thin Air: Encounters in the Himalayas, and Postcards from the Ledge.

Customer Reviews

MORE IS SOMETIMES LESS...
This is the true story of four young Americans, three men and one woman, who in August of 2000 ventured into Kyrgyzstan in order to rock climb in the Pamir-Alai mountain range. On August 11, 2000, while climbing, they would suddenly find themselves the target of sniper fire. After their descent, they would find themselves taken at gunpoint and held hostage by young Islamic fundamentalists of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. They would join a Kyrgyz soldier whom the militants had already taken prisoner.

The next six days would prove to be harrowing ones for these climbers, who would be marched thrugh the rugged terrain of the mountains with little food and water and constant threat of execution at the hands of their heavily armed captors. They would eventually see the their fellow captive, the Kyrgyz soldier with whom they had bonded, executed. With nothing to lose, they would be forced to make a life or death decision that was to cause them much angst but would allow for an escape.

The author's somewhat dry chronicle of these startling pre-9/11 events, looking back in hindsight, now seem to have a much more evil and sinister portent. The story is multifaceted in that it grounds what happened to these climbers in a global context, giving the historical backdrop and political dynamics of the area.

The author fully lays out the media circus that enveloped the climbers upon their return to the United States. He also found himself becoming part of the story, as exclusivity and certain monetary arrangements he had made with the climbers threatened to dominate the story and cast a pall over the veracity of all. The author also lays out the secret pact that the climbers had made over the agonizing decision one of them had reached in order to effect their escape. It was a decision that they believed had led to the death of the captor who had been entrusted with keeping them captive.

The media circus around what had happened to them turned decidedly ugly when it was discovered that this captor was still alive and under arrest. What he had to say would then throw the media into a further tailspin. Thanks to the power of television, however, a Dateline NBC interview with the captor at the heart of the storm of the controversy would finally put to rest some of the unsavory portions of this true life adventure.

What really stands out is the naivete and ignorance of the climbers about the part of the world in which they were traveling. Notwithstanding the fact that none of them seemed to be particularly bright, they had done very little in terms of research into the area before traveling there nor had they heeded State Department advisories about the area. The climbers, in large part, remain somewhat of an enigma and, as such, the reader finds oneself caring very little about them.

This news saga originally appeared as a gripping article in "Outside" magazine. I had the good fortune to have read it and was transfixed by what had happened. I do not recall who wrote the article, though it was most likely Greg Child. In writing this book, however, he seems to have sucked the life out of the story. While still worth reading, it is an adventure story uitterly devoid of passion.

More than just a hostage/escape story
A previous reviewer has summed up the plot of this book well, so no point repeating that.

Overall, I enjoyed this. It is a diligent attempt to describe what happened not just to the four American hostages, but to the other nationalities who were, more briefly, captured by Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) terrorists and the Kyrgyz soldiers who suffered substantial losses during the fighting. Child could have just focused on the experience of the Americans and ignored everyone else, and it is to his credit that he does not adopt that Hollywood style approach.

This is much more than a simple, real-life action story. Although the book's first page jumps straight to the moment when the Americans first came under fire, this is broken off after only 14 pages. Child then jerks us back in time to describe the background and personality of each of the Americans, how they came to be in Kyrgyzstan,the history of the IMU, its first major offensive into Kyrgyzstan in 1999, and its capture of a group of Ukrainian, German and Uzbek climbers a day before the Americans were seized. The story of the American ordeal does not resume until page 110, so a bit of patience is required.

However, this conscientious account is rewarding if persisted with. Most impressively, Child doesn't opt for an easy ending to the tale. He includes an analysis of the disturbing smearing of the Americans' character and integrity following their dramatic escape. People who had not met them, or who had never even been to Kyrgyzstan libelled them and accused them of embellishing their story in order to make money. Child does a good job of exposing the malicious irrationality of this campaign and shames all those who took part in it.

There are some flaws to the book. The repeated references to the Taliban and al-Qaeda seem a bit gratuitous, as if Child is trying to compensate for the IMU's relative obscurity by continually mentioning its links to its more notorious partners. Some of the digressions, such as a description of Chechen rebel Shamil Basayev and a long quote from a Taliban religious law directive, are not necessary, or could have been more succinct.

The narrative is also disjointed in places and it is hard to follow the movements of various groups of terrorists and hostages around the mountains and valleys. An artist's impression showing the topography of the region, with the different groups' journeys represented as overlaid dotted lines (or something similar!) would have been handy.

Otherwise, a great account. Well worth reading.