Excellent thriller and good sequel to [b:Peak|721003|Peak (Peak #1)|Roland Smith|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328876929s/721003.jpg|3348719], although you don't need to have read the first book to enjoy this one. Our hero, Peak, agrees to go on a "Peace Climb" in Afghanistan when he's asked by his videographer friends from his climb up Everest (in book one). It's going to be a simultaneous climb by 200 climbers all over the world, being filmed for a television special. What makes it unique for Peak is that his mother, a world-class climber before she had Peak, is going along to climb too, and this will be new for him to climb with her. But things go wrong very dramatically, when some of the climbing party (including Peak's mom) are kidnapped by Afghan and French thugs! So the story goes from a standard climb story about the annoyance of the allowances they have to make for the film crew ("Climb right here because it looks best for the camera!" "Can you do that again, I missed the shot!" etc.), to political action thriller/survival story, as Peak has to try to track them down and rescue them without getting killed himself. Lots of fun for the reader, suspenseful, with a great deal of excellent background info on Afghani culture and mountain climbing thrown in as well. Has a nice positive pro-peace message hidden in there too. Good middle school choice.