On September 30, 2006 gunfire echoed through the thin air near Advance Base Camp on Cho Oyu Mountain. Frequented by thousands of climbers each year, Cho Oyu lies nineteen miles east of Mt. Everest on the border between Tibet and Nepal. To the elite mountaineering community, it offers a straightforward summit -- a warm-up climb to her formidable sister. To Tibetans, Cho Oyu promises a gateway to freedom through a secret glacial path: the Nangpa La. Murder in the High Himalaya is the unforgettable account of the brutal killing of Kelsang Namtso -- a seventeen-year-old Tibetan nun fleeing to India -- by Chinese border guards. Witnessed by dozens of Western climbers, Kelsang's death sparked an international debate over China's savage oppression of Tibet. Adventure reporter Jonathan Green has gained rare entrance into this shadow-land at the rooftop of the world. In his affecting portrait of modern Tibet, Green raises enduring questions about morality and the lengths we go to achieve freedom.

"By patient accumulation of anecdote and detail, Rustad evolves Shetler’s story into something much more human, and humanly tragic, into a layered inquisition and a reportorial force....suffice it to say Rustad has done what the best storytellers do: tried to track the story to its last twig and then stepped aside." —New York Times Book Review In the vein of Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild, a riveting work of narrative nonfiction centering on the unsolved disappearance of an American backpacker in India—one of at least two dozen tourists who have met a similar fate in the remote and storied Parvati Valley. For centuries, India has enthralled westerners looking for an exotic getaway, a brief immersion in yoga and meditation, or in rare cases, a true pilgrimage to find spiritual revelation. Justin Alexander Shetler, an inveterate traveler trained in wilderness survival, was one such seeker. In his early thirties Justin Alexander Shetler, quit his job at a tech startup and set out on a global journey: across the United States by motorcycle, then down to South America, and on to the Philippines, Thailand, and Nepal, in search of authentic experiences and meaningful encounters, while also documenting his travels on Instagram. His enigmatic character and magnetic personality gained him a devoted following who lived vicariously through his adventures. But the ever restless explorer was driven to pursue ever greater challenges, and greater risks, in what had become a personal quest—his own hero’s journey. In 2016, he made his way to the Parvati Valley, a remote and rugged corner of the Indian Himalayas steeped in mystical tradition yet shrouded in darkness and danger. There, he spent weeks studying under the guidance of a sadhu, an Indian holy man, living and meditating in a cave. At the end of August, accompanied by the sadhu, he set off on a “spiritual journey” to a holy lake—a journey from which he would never return. Lost in the Valley of Death is about one man’s search to find himself, in a country where for many westerners the path to spiritual enlightenment can prove fraught, even treacherous. But it is also a story about all of us and the ways, sometimes extreme, we seek fulfillment in life. Lost in the Valley of Death includes 16 pages of color photographs.

On a bright July morning in 1870 the British explorer George Hayward was brutally murdered high in the Hindu Kush. Who was he, what had brought him to this wild spot, and why was he killed? Told in full for the first time, this is the gripping tale of Hayward's journey from a Yorkshire childhood to a place at the forefront of the 'Great Game' between the British Raj and the Russian Empire. Driven by 'an insane desire' Hayward crossed the Western Himalayas, tangled with despotic chieftains and ended up on the wrong side of both the Raj and the mighty Maharaja of Kashmir. Tim Hannigan explores the conspiracies and controversies that surrounded his death, travelling in Hayward's footsteps to bring the story up to date, and to reveal how the echoes of the Great Game still reverberate across Central Asia in the twenty-first century.

A journalist investigates a cold-blooded murder at a Mt. Everest base camp in Chinese-occupied Tibet, a probe during which he learns about the lawless world in the shadows of the world's tallest peaks.

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Why would anyone kill a well-meaning foreigner like Clare Watson in a quiet neighbourhood in the foothills of the Himalayas? Yes, Clare was a fearless woman. But why would she venture into the dark forest after sundown knowing it fully well as leopard habitat? When a celebrity author-activist is found battered in a Himalayan forest spring, the event resounds internationally. India jumps into headlines once again as a country that is unsafe for women. Closer home, the tragedy divides the sleepy village into gentle folk who mourn the dreadful passing of their dear friend and the motivated elite who believe she was begging for trouble. As Neville Wadia picks his way through the blood-splattered hills of Birtola, he begins to unpack the deadly truth that killed Clare, only to realize there are other tender lives at stake. What kind of killer is at work here: a jealous lover, a dejected husband, a sharp land grabber, a wily politician or a disgruntled local? Tense and atmospheric, a Death in the Himalayas is a mesmerizing mystery about the little-known intimacies of an idyllic locale.

On September 30, 2006 gunfire echoed through the thin air near Advance Base Camp on Cho Oyu Mountain. Frequented by thousands of climbers each year, Cho Oyu lies nineteen miles east of Mt. Everest on the border between Tibet and Nepal. To the elite mountaineering community, it offers a straightforward summit - a warm-up climb to her formidable sister. To Tibetans, Cho Oyu promises a gateway to freedom through a secret glacial path: the Nangpa La. Murder in the High Himalaya is the unforgettable account of the brutal killing of Kelsang Namtso - a seventeen-year-old Tibetan nun fleeing to India - by Chinese border guards. Witnessed by dozens of Western climbers, Kelsang's death sparked an international debate over China's savage oppression of Tibet. Adventure reporter Jonathan Green has gained rare entrance into this shadow-land at the rooftop of the world. In his affecting portrait of modern Tibet, Green raises enduring questions about morality and the lengths we go to achieve freedom.