Lost in the Valley of Death

A Story of Obsession and Danger in the Himalayas

By: Harley Rustad

Narrated by: Harley Rustad

2022 Banff Mountain Book Festival Award, Nominated
2023 The Crime Writers of Canada Awards of Excellence - The Brass Knuckles Award for Best Nonfiction Crime Book, Short-listed

NATIONAL BESTSELLER
ONE OF CBC'S BEST CANADIAN NONFICTION BOOKS OF 2022

For fans of Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild, the riveting story of the unsolved disappearance of an American backpacker in India—one of at least two dozen tourists who have met a similar fate in the remote and storied Parvati Valley.

For centuries, India has enthralled Westerners looking for an exotic getaway, a brief immersion in yoga and meditation, or, in rare cases, a true pilgrimage to find spiritual revelation. Justin Alexander Shetler, an inveterate traveler trained in wilderness survival, was one such seeker.
In his early thirties, Justin quit his job at a tech startup and set out on a global journey—across the United States by motorcycle, then down to South America, and on to the Philippines, Thailand, and Nepal—in search of authentic experiences and meaningful encounters while documenting his travels on Instagram. His enigmatic character and magnetic personality gained him a devoted following who lived vicariously through his adventures. But the ever-restless explorer was driven to seek out ever-greater extremes, and greater risks, in what had become a personal quest—his own hero’s journey.
In 2016, he made his way to the Parvati Valley, a remote and rugged corner of the Indian Himalayas steeped in mystical tradition and shrouded in darkness and danger. There he spent weeks studying under the guidance of a sadhu, an Indian holy man, living and meditating in a cave. At the end of August, accompanied by the sadhu, he set off on a spiritual journey to a holy lake—one from which he would never return.
Lost in the Valley of Death is about one man’s search to find himself, in a country where, for many Westerners, the path to spiritual enlightenment can prove fraught, even treacherous. But it is also a story about all of us and the ways, sometimes extreme, we seek fulfillment in life.

©2022 Harley Rustad (P)2022 Knopf Canada

Critic reviews

NAMED A BEST CANADIAN NONFICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE CBC

“[Rustad is] such a sure-handed raconteur . . . we can’t look away. . . . By patient accumulation of anecdote and detail, Rustad evolves Shetler’s story into something much more human, and humanly tragic, into a layered inquisition and a reportorial force that pushes Shetler . . . into a technicolor mystery. . . . Suffice it to say Rustad has done what the best storytellers do: tried to track the story to its last twig and then stepped aside.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Rustad proves himself here to be a masterful storyteller . . . you’re not going to want to put this book down.” —Toronto Star

“A nuanced and gripping account.... The latest in a rich seam of travel writing that captures the curiosity and hubris of the planet’s most restless souls.” —Financial Times