LONDON — A gripping account of a doomed attempt to climb Mount Everest has won Britain’s leading nonfiction book prize.

“Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory and the Conquest of Everest” by Canadian author Wade Davis was awarded the $32,000 Samuel Johnson Prize on Monday.

British mountaineer George Mallory died on the world’s highest peak in 1924, and debate still rages about whether he reached the summit.