Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Feb 2008
368 pages
Genre: History, Current Affairs and Religion
Publication Information
In 2004, journalist Michael Kodas joined local mountain climbers from home on an expedition to Mount Everest. He anticipated an exhilarating and arduous adventure among a group of like-minded idealists that he could report to his readers back in Connecticut. But on the Himalayan mountain, he discovered thieves, prostitutes, con men, and blackmailers. There were people who would do anything for a quick buck, or a guarantee of reaching the top. And some of them were on his own team.
Thieves stole equipment on which the team's lives depended, Kodas's life was threatened by one of his teammates, and a climbing partner was beaten unconscious by another in Base Camp. He returned from the Himalaya disillusioned. But a plea for help from the daughter of a mountaineer who vanished on Everest on the very day that Kodas had retreated from his own disintegrating team prompted him to return to Everest and uncover an underworld that preys on unsuspecting climbers on major peaks around the world.
High Crimes is a shocking expose of the dark underside of Everest: people stepping over dying climbers on their way up; unscrupulous con men who sell faulty oxygen tanks that leave climbers without air when their lives depend on it; drugs and prostitution in Base Camp; and people all but murdered in the cutthroat race to get to the top.
"Starred Review. A clear-eyed, riveting narrative." - Kirkus Reviews.
"While Antezana's story was reported in the Washington Post and Kodas's dispatches published in the Courant, the juxtaposition of these two accounts, with their many thrilling yet troubling details, makes this a highly recommended purchase for public libraries." - Library Journal.
"Oddly enough, Kodas writes less ably about himself, and the reasons for his own expedition's collapse remain unclear; the sequencing of story lines is confusing as well. Nevertheless, his narrative is as hard to turn away from as a slow-motion train wreck." - Publishers Weekly.
This information about High Crimes was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
The Library Journal review refers to pathologist Nils Antezana's fatal Mount Everest climb in 2004, which is detailed in High Crimes.
Michael Kodas is a member of the Pulitzer Prize-winning team of journalists at The Hartford Courant, where he has worked since 1987 as a reporter and photographer.
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