Breathless

Set in the Himalayas, McCulloch’s promising debut gets off to a slow start with too much exposition, but the pace soon picks up. Budding outdoors writer Cecily Wong has landed a chance to interview famed climber Charles McVeigh, but there’s a big catch. Cecily, a novice climber, must climb the Nepalese peak Manaslu, the world’s eighth-highest mountain, one of 14 summits above 26,000 feet, the altitude known as the “death zone.” McVeigh is trying to summit all 14 mountains in a year, without ropes or supplemental oxygen, an unprecedented feat. Cecily’s expedition runs into trouble early on, as two members of her team die under suspicious circumstances, and the challenges of extreme climbing test her own strength and resolve. As Cecily chases a killer story on a killer mountain, she realizes there’s a killer among the mountaineers. The action on Manaslu is gripping and scary, and readers will feel as if they’re breathing the same thin air as the young writer, who’s in over her head well above the clouds. Thriller fans will eagerly await McCulloch’s next. (May)