The Third Pole

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2022 SPORTS BOOK AWARDS

''The best Everest book I''ve read since Into Thin Air. Synnott''s climbing skills take you places few will ever dare to tread, but it''s his writing that will keep you turning pages well past bedtime.'' - Mark Adams

Veteran climber Mark Synnott never planned on climbing Mount Everest. But a hundred-year mystery lured him into an expedition where a history of passionate adventure, chilling tragedy, and human aspiration unfolded.

George Mallory and Sandy Irvine were last seen in 1924, eight hundred feet shy of Everest''s summit. A century later, we still don''t know whether they achieved their goal of being first to reach the top, decades before Hillary and Norgay in 1953. Irvine carried a camera with him to record their attempt, but it, along with his body, had never been found. Did Mallory and Irvine reach the summit and take a photograph before they fell to their deaths?

Mark Synnot