The Abominable, Dan Simmons

No one summited Mt Everest in 1925, or did they? Simmons gives us a secret 1925 recovery/summit expedition through the eyes of Jacob (Jake) Perry, then a young American climber. Jake and mountain guide JC Clairoux and poet and first world war survivor Richard Davis Deacon are to climb Everest in search of a minor noble, Lord Bromley who was attached to the fateful 1924 expedition that claimed Mallory and Irvine and who died in the company of a young Austrian during an avalanche.

Everest declares war on the small team led by Reggie Bromley, herself an accomplished climber, they encounter uncooperative monks, accidents, rumours of yeti roaming the mountain, but with cutting edge technology (for 1925) they are soon into the ‘death zone’ at 28,000 ft and their recovery mission becomes a fight for survival that could one day avert a war and the only way out is to head for the summit.