Another in the excellent Mountaineers Outdoor Expert series, this book deals with the often-ignored art of "improvising solutions for serious situations." The general focus is on one member of a 2-person rope team (the "belayer" person) rescuing the other member (the "hungover and made a poor decision" person).
Written by Andy Tyson and Meg Loomis and featuring the great illustrations of Mike Clelland, the book’s chapters are: The Basics, Rescue Knots, Escaping a Belay, Descending, Ascending, Raising and Passing Knots. That last one sounds painful; I passed a kidney stone once and it hurt badly enough. (Rimshot!)
These are followed by a chapter with 29 scenarios in a problem-solution-prevention format that gives the reader a chance to problem-solve. Last but knot least (doh! I’m on fire!) there are a few appendices that truly touched my inner gear geek, such as accident statistics, knot efficiencies and the like.