Spy on the Roof of the World: Espionage and Survival in the Himalayas

New York: The Lyons Press, July 2000. Trade Paperback. Second Lyons Press Edition. Very Good+. Unmarked. Spine straight and tight with a single very slight crease. Covers clean and bright. Light reading wear to corners. Not from a library. No remainder mark. xviii + 267 pages. b&w photos, maps.

In 1955, Sydney Wignall organized the Welsh Himalayan expedition to climb Tibet's highest mountain, Gurla Mandhata. But Wignall and two of his companions were more than just mountaineers; before setting out, Wignall had been recruited by a covert faction within Indian intelligence to report on Chinese military operations in newly invaded Tibet. Wignall and his band of unlikely spies were soon captured and imprisoned by the Red Army, thus beginning an ordeal that would draw on their last reserves of physical and emotional strength. Subjected to rat-infested, subfreezing cells and months of torturous interrogation, Wignall and his colleagues refused to allow their spirits to be broken. Ultimately, international pressure convinced the Chinese to release the three spies. But instead of being flown safely home, they were ordered to return via the Seti Gorge in the middle of winter, a deadly Himalayan pass considered suicidal even in summer. Their bodies wracked with frostbite and dysentery, their final trek to freedom is an amazing testament to their will to survive.