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The Ascent Of D13
The newest, most secret weapon is tested over an airfield in Germany by an RAF plane which was then ordered to land in Cyprus. On the way the plane was hijacked and set course for Russia, but it crashed close to an international frontier between East and West.
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1969
35 people want to read
About the author
Andrew Garve
135 books11 followersAKA: Paul Somers, Roger Bax
Andrew Garve was the pen name of Paul Winterton (1908-2001). He was born in Leicester and educated at the Hulme Grammar School, Manchester and Purley County School, Surrey, after which he took a degree in Economics at London University. He was on the staff of The Economist for four years, and then worked for fourteen years for the London News Chronicle as reporter, leader writer and foreign correspondent. He was assigned to Moscow from 1942 to 1945, where he was also the correspondent of the BBC’s Overseas Service.
After the war he turned to full-time writing of detective and adventure novels and produced more than forty-five books. His work was serialized, televised, broadcast, filmed and translated into some twenty languages. He was noted for his varied and unusual backgrounds – including Russia, newspaper offices, the West Indies, ocean sailing, the Australian outback, politics, mountaineering and forestry – and for never repeating a plot.
Andrew Garve was a founding member and first joint secretary of the Crime Writers’ Association.
Andrew Garve was the pen name of Paul Winterton (1908-2001). He was born in Leicester and educated at the Hulme Grammar School, Manchester and Purley County School, Surrey, after which he took a degree in Economics at London University. He was on the staff of The Economist for four years, and then worked for fourteen years for the London News Chronicle as reporter, leader writer and foreign correspondent. He was assigned to Moscow from 1942 to 1945, where he was also the correspondent of the BBC’s Overseas Service.
After the war he turned to full-time writing of detective and adventure novels and produced more than forty-five books. His work was serialized, televised, broadcast, filmed and translated into some twenty languages. He was noted for his varied and unusual backgrounds – including Russia, newspaper offices, the West Indies, ocean sailing, the Australian outback, politics, mountaineering and forestry – and for never repeating a plot.
Andrew Garve was a founding member and first joint secretary of the Crime Writers’ Association.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
June 15, 2017
I love this book. It’s the kind of thriller that just doesn’t get written any more. (It was published in 1969.) A plane crashes, the Russians and the West both want what it contains, and they send out climbing teams to get it. Once the set-up is out of the way, practically the entire book is what’s suggested in the title: the ascent. Lots of climbing detail, vividly written. Thrillers used to be like this in the 60s and 70s: lean, fast-paced, unpretentious – and all wrapped up in just over 150 pages. Boy do I miss those days.
October 18, 2024
Paul Winterton, otherwise known as Andrew Garve, is one of the best of the 50's and 60's thriller writers. This novel, from 1968, is about a plane that crashes in the mountains between Turkey and Russia. It happens to be carrying a top-secret device that both the Russians and the Americans want to get their hands on. The balance of the book is a race between the two climbing teams to get there first.
I don't know if Paul Winterton ever climbed a mountain, but the book felt authentic in its climbing scenes. Winterton was such a fantastic writer that I could almost feel the cold and ice and breathe in the rarified air. But then all of his books are beautifully written. He's one of those writers that makes you feel like you're right there in the scene.
But the best part of the novel is the love story that blossoms out of nowhere. I'll not give anything away, but halfway through the book a female character emerges and turns the story on its ear. I loved how the romance was handled, and I must say that the last 20 pages were gripping. The last 8 pages were absolutely perfect. The tension wasn't resolved until the last 100 words.
Andrew Garve is an under-the-radar author...not one of the biggest names of his era. But man, he was good!
I don't know if Paul Winterton ever climbed a mountain, but the book felt authentic in its climbing scenes. Winterton was such a fantastic writer that I could almost feel the cold and ice and breathe in the rarified air. But then all of his books are beautifully written. He's one of those writers that makes you feel like you're right there in the scene.
But the best part of the novel is the love story that blossoms out of nowhere. I'll not give anything away, but halfway through the book a female character emerges and turns the story on its ear. I loved how the romance was handled, and I must say that the last 20 pages were gripping. The last 8 pages were absolutely perfect. The tension wasn't resolved until the last 100 words.
Andrew Garve is an under-the-radar author...not one of the biggest names of his era. But man, he was good!
November 1, 2022
Strange novella about an attempt to climb an infamous mountain on the Turkish-Russian border in order to destroy a top secret McGuffin-type-thing. Quick, but somewhat unsatisfying, read.
© Koplowitz 2022
© Koplowitz 2022
February 28, 2018
Garve's strongest statement of anti-communism. Enjoy the happy ending.
December 1, 2009
This book starts with a hijacking. A carefully chosen UN plane is traveling across Europe to test a new top secret spy camera when one of the crew pulls a gun and announces that they are going to Russia. The copilot gets a chance to get the gun away from him just before they are ready to land and the plane turns around. Right at the Turkish border the Russians shoot down the plane. It crashes on a remote mountain.
Entirely by chance an internationally renowned mountain climber happens to be in Turkey at that very moment! (all right, the book has to start somewhere) The English diplomat asks him would he please climb up there and return that camera?
Some major mountain climbing drama ensues. I am not a climber; in fact, I'm not so crazy about hanging off a cliff tied to a rope. No fun for me. But I still enjoyed this book. Maybe it helps that I have some mountains right outside my window, but I found it pretty easy to get into the story.
What made the book a little odd to read is that so much has happened since the book was written. Satellites make much of the story out of date, although a major blizzard will still obscure things. GPS devices mean that pinpointing an exact location is entirely possible. But the real drama - will they make it off the mountain - that hasn't changed. When it comes to the roughest peaks on earth, it's still man vs. element, and the element still wins most of the time.
Not perfect, but I liked it well enough that I'm going to look for another by this author.
Entirely by chance an internationally renowned mountain climber happens to be in Turkey at that very moment! (all right, the book has to start somewhere) The English diplomat asks him would he please climb up there and return that camera?
Some major mountain climbing drama ensues. I am not a climber; in fact, I'm not so crazy about hanging off a cliff tied to a rope. No fun for me. But I still enjoyed this book. Maybe it helps that I have some mountains right outside my window, but I found it pretty easy to get into the story.
What made the book a little odd to read is that so much has happened since the book was written. Satellites make much of the story out of date, although a major blizzard will still obscure things. GPS devices mean that pinpointing an exact location is entirely possible. But the real drama - will they make it off the mountain - that hasn't changed. When it comes to the roughest peaks on earth, it's still man vs. element, and the element still wins most of the time.
Not perfect, but I liked it well enough that I'm going to look for another by this author.
Want to read
February 23, 2019Synopsis: when a plane crashes in the mountains, both the Russians and the West try to obtain it's contents. They send climbing teams.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews