Of Heroes, Villains and High Adventure : IN A HIGH AND LONELY PLACE, <i> by Steven Voien,</i> HarperCollins, $20; 288 pages

Does anybody out there remember the works of Commander Edward Ellsberg? By happy chance they made their home in the children’s section of the public library, but that was the wrong place for them.

They were wild . They had adventures to the max, villains with no end to their fiendishness and hideous accidents, mostly of the deep-sea-diving variety, where one false move on the bottom of the ocean can turn a diver into red jelly, all stuffed into his helmet.

There was almost always a girl around, usually of ethnic stamp, and sometimes named Carlotta. The sexual act wasn’t even necessary when Carlotta was around; she could steam up a whole ship just by stepping out on deck.

Well! Change all that from the high seas to the Nepalese lowlands. Change the intrepid sea captain to a wildlife researcher named David Trowbridge. Instead of a crew of brave--nay, foolhardy--divers, fill in a set of loyal porters and trackers named Dorje, Jeet, Chandra and Norbu. Then change Carlotta to Nima. (Put Nima in disguise: She looks like a filthy, unkempt porter, ready to hike the length and breadth of the Himalayas, but she used to be a genuine goddess, comes from a good Hindu family and speaks several languages.)

Toss in some villains: Nakara, of the Shikari persuasion, who behaves badly to the point of dementia. Rape, pillage and skinning people alive are what Nakara does for fun.

Plus, there are up to half a dozen other fiendishly evil folk out to accomplish their own foul purposes, but I don’t want to give the plot away, and you couldn’t remember their names even if I did. (One of the serious drawbacks of this book is that it’s hard, at first, to tell Dorje from Norbu, or to remember if it’s Nakara of the Shikari, or vice-versa.)

But it doesn’t matter. Trowbridge is heading north, in an expedition out of Pokaru, past Annapurna, over dangerous mountain passes, to a mysterious region near the Chinese border. He is looking for bear, wolves, Bharal (blue sheep), musk deer and the elusive snow leopard. There’s a foundation back in New York (this part is unclear) ready to fund the national park, or a wildlife preserve, if there’s enough wildlife around to warrant it.

That’s the story. First the leeches in the lowlands, mysterious attacks and unexplained shortwave radios. At the end there’s a great kidnaping, a climb up an ice floe, a secret war, buried gold and some real fiends up in those high Himalayan valleys. But there’s also a gracious lama, a scary witch, Nakara from Shiraki and a few hundred friendly villagers.

Trowbridge gets to dance, fall in love, track the snow leopard. He receives crash courses in mountain climbing and meditation. He uncovers lost manuscripts, mummies and bombs. He lies in the sun, surrounded by wildflowers. He almost freezes to death. And he and Nima develop a friendly, erotic transcendent relationship.

This is Steven Voien’s first novel, and he seems to be having the most wonderful time with it. During the first chapter he presumes a little too much knowledge on the part of the reader. But Trowbridge’s adventures are filled with scenic beauty, ghastly gore, Nima, those snow leopards and all-night dancing with those friendly villagers: What reasonable reader could ask for anything more?

Next: John Wilkes reviews “The Mind’s Eye: Human Intelligence in a Cosmic Context” by Timothy Ferris (Bantam).