"Stronger Than Fear" by Marc Levy, summary

"Stronger Than Fear" is a 2013 detective and political novel by French author Marc Lévy. This book is the second installment in a series of investigative stories by reporter Andrew Stillman, continuing the events of the 2012 novel "Going Back." The narrative connects the crash of a passenger plane in the Alps, Cold War-era secrets, and a massive international conspiracy over the Arctic’s natural resources.

Alpine Disaster and a Dangerous Discovery

On the morning of January 24, 1966, the Indian airliner Kangchenjunga, a Boeing 707, crashed into the Mont Blanc massif at an altitude of 4,670 meters. All passengers and crew on board were killed, including diplomat Adesh Shamal, who was carrying a secret envelope from George Ashton in his diplomatic pouch.

Forty-seven years later, on January 24, 2013, a young American, Susie Baker, along with experienced instructor Shamir, undertakes a risky winter ascent of Mont Blanc. During a severe storm, the pair falls off the slope and into a deep crevasse. In an underground ice cave, the climbers discover the bow of the airliner that sank in 1966, embedded in the ice.

Susie finds the diplomat’s remains and opens the metal briefcase chained to his hand. She takes a leather pouch containing an intact letter, a photograph, and a red key. While attempting to climb up a steep icy pit, the seriously wounded Shamir realizes he’s not strong enough for both of them. He confesses his love to Susie, cuts the rope connecting them, and falls to the bottom of the abyss. Susie, with severe frostbite, reaches rescuers, after which, at the hospital, two of her fingers are amputated.

An unusual acquaintance in New York

Several months later, New York Times journalist Andrew Stillman is recovering from the aftermath of an attack that cost him a kidney and his marriage to his beloved Valerie. Spending his days in the reading room of the New York Public Library, Andrew meets Susie, who is studying historical materials and stubbornly hiding her injured right hand.

Soon, Susie’s apartment on Morton Street is broken into by unknown assailants, who wreak havoc but take nothing. Stillman offers her temporary lodging in his empty apartment. However, soon afterward, the journalist himself is attacked on the landing by an unknown assailant, and his own home is similarly searched.

Andrew realizes the girl is being followed. It turns out that Susie hid a letter from George Ashton, addressed to Senator Edward Walker, found in the crashed plane, behind the refrigerator in his apartment.

The Walker Family Mystery and the Search for the Code

Susie reveals the truth to Stillman: her real name is Walker. In January 1966, her grandmother, Lillian Walker, was publicly accused of treason and working for Soviet intelligence, after which she allegedly died while attempting to flee abroad. Susie is convinced of her grandmother’s innocence and strives to clear her name.

Susie has been looked after since childhood by Arnold Knopf, a Central Intelligence Agency veteran and her grandfather’s confidant. Wanting to verify the facts, Andrew travels to Vermont to visit veteran journalist Ben Morton. There, Stillman studies archival materials from the 1960s, unaware that the man interviewing him is actually an intelligence agent named Wolford, posing as Morton, and that the real man has already been killed.

Returning to the city, Stillman matches the phrase on the façade of the James Farley Central Post Office with Lillian’s old note. Together with Susie, they secretly enter the abandoned post office basement, find post office box 1933, and retrieve an envelope bearing the single word "Snegourochka," barely escaping their pursuers.

Lake Schroon Refuge and the Deadly Threat

Archival footage leads the heroes to Clarks Island on Schroon Lake in the Adirondack Mountains. Local grocer Elliot Brody reveals that Lillian regularly spent weekends there with a secret lover. He was a young politician who, decades later, became an influential vice president of the United States.

In a hiding place behind the fireplace bricks, Susie and Andrew find a letter from Lillian to her daughter Matilda, a stack of photographs, and a strange sheet music for the opera "The Snow Maiden." On the dock, an assassin attacks Andrew and attempts to drown him in the lake. Susie kills the assailant with two shots from a revolver, after which she and Andrew dump the body at the bottom of the lake.

The heroes hastily return to Manhattan and approach Juilliard School of Music student Jack Coleman. He compares the score with the full text of the opera and discovers that the missing bars form a coded message. A short time later, the student is murdered in his dorm by secret service agents, but Stillman manages to retrieve the completed printout from the printer.

The Secret of Operation Snegurochka

The text of the note reveals the essence of the conspiracy: in 1966, influential politicians and oil magnates devised a secret plan to destroy Arctic pack ice using deep-sea nuclear explosions from submarines. The goal of the operation was to open a year-round Northern Sea Route and develop the gigantic Arctic oil fields at the cost of global climate catastrophe. Having learned of this plan in her husband’s office, Lillian attempted to hand over the classified documents to Norwegian authorities.

Fleeing pursuit by National Security Agency agents, Susie and Andrew fly to Norway. At the ancient Bergenhus Fortress in Bergen, they discover the mortally wounded Arnold Knopf. Before his death, Knopf confirms the details of the operation and reveals that the coveted documents are hidden within the Arctic Circle.

Susie deciphers the geographic coordinates hidden in Ashton’s letter by numbers and dates. Having chartered a seaplane, the heroes fly to an abandoned polar weather station amid the ice fields. Using the red key found on Mont Blanc, Susie unlocks a hidden wall safe and retrieves the original folder containing evidence from Operation Snegurochka.

Revealing the truth and ending the search

An armed George Ashton appears at the polar station. He explains that forty-seven years ago, instead of killing Lillian, he secretly hid her in a monastery. The dossier hidden at the station served as a safe-conduct, keeping her former lover from killing her. To avoid putting his grandmother’s life in mortal danger, Stillman puts the documents back in the safe and gives the key to Ashton in exchange for a meeting with Lillian.

Ashton takes Susie to a monastery near Oslo. The elderly Lillian pretends to be delirious, protecting her granddaughter from continuing the dangerous struggle. Only after the guests leave does the elderly woman ask her husband to give the key to Susie after her death.

Andrew returns to New York, saving copies of the dossier pages on his phone. Susie finds Stillman’s ex-wife, Valerie, and convinces her to give Andrew a chance at reconciliation, after which she leaves for Boston. Later, Susie climbs Mont Blanc again, retrieves Shamir’s remains for his parents, and then conquers a peak in the Himalayas, leaving her dead lover’s red scarf there.