The Third Pinnacle

by Bob Langley

In 1961, Joseph Lassimer, a US Naval officer, his crew and his aircraft went missing without trace. The government were convinced they had defected to Communist China with their six million dollars in gold bullion. In 1998, the wreck of the aircraft is discovered on the inaccessible northeastern side of Mount Everest, and Jerry Lassimer is given a chance to clear her grandfather's name. But Jerry isn't the only interested party -- the Chinese government and one of the largest organised crime families in the US both have their own reasons for wanting to sabotage the expedition. In a race to the top the stakes are high and Jerry realises she can't afford to trust anyone, not even the members of her own team, if she wants to stay alive.

222 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Bob Langley is a British television presenter, now retired, best known for being a presenter of the BBC1 afternoon chat show Pebble Mill At One. Langley also presented its late night version Saturday Night at The Mill. Langley is also a novelist.

Prior to his broadcasting career, Bob had a job in a Newcastle insurance office, then joined the RAF; then travelled through America.He began his broadcast career in the early days of Tyne Tees television on the nightly news programme. "The early days could be a bit catastrophic, a real string and sealing wax job," he said. "There weren't too many of us who really knew what we were doing. We didn't even have an autocue, and when we had it was like a giant toilet roll, but we had an awful lot of fun."

From 1970 he was a reporter on Nationwide. It was as a result of his and fellow presenter Donny MacLeod's success on the show that they were reassigned to launch Pebble Mill in 1972.

As a BBC newscaster and roving correspondent, he wandered all over the globe, visiting some of the world’s most inaccessible corners and using the locations as backgrounds for his adventure novels. In 1981 he travel to Argentina, the Falkland Islands and Antarctica and brought back the first intimation of the gathering political storm in the South Atlantic. When Argentina invaded Port Stanley, his series “Langley South” was sold by the BBC to 21 different countries. He has crossed the Sahara by Land Rover, ridden with the gauchos on the Argentine Pampas, explored the Antarctic with Falklands Governor Sir Rex Hunt, crossed the Himalayas and climbed mountains all over the world.

Langley has written several novels, including The War of the Running Fox (1978), Falklands Gambit (1984)and The Churchill Diamonds(1986).