In many ways, technical climbing is more a religion than a sport. These die-hard climbers are modern-day ascetics who have sacrificed everything -- money, worldly goods, stability -- to pit their bodies and their moral resoluteness against the unyielding surface of the rock.

To his surprise, in the course of the year chronicled in Fall of the Phantom Lord, the author, always a thrill-seeker but now a husband and new father, finds himself weighing the relative value of danger. In the end, as he ponders joining Osman on a perilous fall from a high bridge, Todhunter comes to a new understanding of risk taking and what it means to him.

Beautifully written and utterly fascinating, Fall of the Phantom Lord is a captivating exploration of a world few people have experienced, as well as a thoughtful meditation on the role of risk and fear in the author's own life. It will surely take its place alongside Into Thin Air and The Perfect Storm as a classic of adventure literature.