Book excerpt: A riveting adventure memoir chronicling Wignall's 1955 participation in an expedition to climb Tibet's highest mountain, Gurla Mandhata, and his not so incidental spy activities as part of a covert Indian intelligence operation. The author and his companions were subsequently captured by the Chinese, imprisoned, tortured, and finally released only to face a trek across a Himalayan pass while suffering from malnourishment and dysentry. It's the kind of story that a fiction writer would be hard pressed to invent and is told with great aplomb and even humor. Lacks an index and bibliography. Includes photographs and maps. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR