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The Wall

A Thriller

Audiobook
0 of 1 copy available
Wait time: About 2 weeks
0 of 1 copy available
Wait time: About 2 weeks
From the New York Times Bestselling Author of The Reckoning


On the vast, sunlit walls of the world's greatest monolith, two veteran climbers unwittingly ascend into a vertical underworld. In a place where obsession kills, they quickly fall prey to past loves, old demons, and ghostly revenge.


Hugh and Lewis were Yosemite legends. El Capitan was their holy grail, and their destiny seemed written on its big walls. Here they met the women who married, then left them. Now, 35 years later, Hugh's wife has long since mysteriously disappeared into the desert and Lewis's wife is divorcing him. The old friends reunite to climb El Cap one last time and make a fresh start.


But "the Captain" seems cursed this time around. Even before the aging "wall rats" leave the ground, disaster strikes three young women high on a neighboring route. Hugh discovers one body in the forest and spies a second dangling a half mile overhead. He and Lewis launch their ascent, desperate to leave the terrible omens behind. But there is no escape. Doubts haunt them, the elements plague them, and an eerie reptilian woman invades their sleep. Every vertical inch, the men must battle the stone, their aging bodies, fear, and the memories of great loves lost.


"Grover Gardner has readers clinging to Long's novel about mountain climbers endangered and trapped on El Capitan, in Yosemite. Gripping is too mild a term for the intense listening experience as a reunion of two 50-year-old climbers turns into a nightmare... Gardner's narration is the voice of sanity among the most bizarre events, keeping reader pinioned. "—AudioFile


"Heart-stopping vertical adventure."—Kirkus Reviews


"The surprise ending is a true shocker in this hurtling, gripping read."—Publishers Weekly
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    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from November 7, 2005
      A widowed geologist makes one final, perilous attempt to scale Yosemite's El Cap and winds up running for his life in Long's atmospheric, aggressive thriller (after The Reckoning
      ). Hugh Glass and his climbing buddy Lewis Cole revisit the mountain where 35 years earlier, they shared glory on the 3,600-foot-high monolith and met the women they would marry. Now, years later, Hugh's wife has vanished and Lewis's is divorcing him. Ascending El Cap, Hugh and Lewis yearn for their wives and are humbled by nature's rapture. Their last-ditch adventure is marred by the discovery of a body—one of three fallen climbers—and an encounter with Joshua, a malevolent old "caveman" who steals the corpse. Long casts the dramatic natural setting as a major player in the story and imparts fascinating facts about the art of rock-climbing. Joshua's reappearance and a forest fire complicate the climbers' trek, before a search and rescue guide who seeks his missing fiancée joins them. Lewis abandons the expedition, but increasingly paranoid Hugh continues on, joining the shifty guide to find the other lost climbers just as a violent storm heads their way. The surprise ending is a true shocker in this hurtling, gripping read.

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  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

Languages

  • English

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