Fallen: Everest and the Enigma of George Mallory by Mick Conefrey

In the years following his disappearance, George Mallory was elevated into an all-British hero - handsome, charismatic and daring, he was the 'Galahad' of Everest, who had died while taking on the ultimate challenge.

But he was also a risk taker who could never get behind the wheel of a car without overtaking the vehicle in front; a climber who pushed himself and those around him to the limits; and a chaotic technophobe who was forever losing equipment or mishandling it, putting himself and his colleagues in danger. Based on diaries, letters, memoirs and thousands of contemporary documents, Fallen is a forensic account of Mallory's last expedition to Everest in 1924, as well as an attempt to get to know the real Mallory; to get under his skin, understand the forces that made him and destroyed him and separate the man from the myth.