The Eiger Sanction

Dr. Jonathan Hemlock is an art professor and mountaineer. He is also a collector of paintings, most of them obtained from the black market. To finance his collection, Hemlock, who served in the Counter Intelligence Corps during the Korean War, works as a so-called "counter-assassin" for a secret US government agency, the CII.

In order to acquire a Pissarro, Hemlock agrees to carry out a couple of "sanctions" (contract assassinations targeted specifically against killers of American agents). The first one is easily dealt with in Montreal. For the second, he will need to join a group of climbers who are about to attempt the north face of the Eiger, a particularly difficult challenge that Hemlock has tried before and failed. Hemlock goes back into training and eventually climbs the mountain with the team that he believes includes his would-be victim — whose identity he will have to deduce on the mountain itself. Poor climbing conditions disrupt the climb and lead Hemlock to the discovery that his target is someone other than he had expected.

The progress of the climb in the book almost exactly mirrors the 1936 attempt on the Eigerwand (North Face of the Eiger) by Bavarian climbers Andreas Hinterstoisser and Toni Kurz and Austrian climbers Willy Angerer and Edi Rainer. After failing in their attempt, three climbers were killed whilst retreating from the mountain, Hinterstoisser by avalanche, Angerer by a fall and Rainer by asphyxiation trying to hold Angerer's fall. Kurz survived the fall, hanging by a rope. Rescuers were able to get close to Kurz by using the window of the Eigerwand railway station but could not reach him. After four days, he died, his last words being "Ich kann nicht mehr" ("I can't go (on) any more"). In the film, Clint Eastwood's character is rescued rather than dying on the rope.

• Assassinations in fiction
• Spy fiction

• The Eiger Sanction at Trevanian.com
• The Eiger Sanction at Google Books