Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Inca Gold By Clive Cussler - Book Review

Inca Gold
By Clive Cussler
Originally Published 1994
This edition published Pocket Star books 2007

Another adventure book from one of my favourite authors. I first read this book around 12 or 13 years ago. I consider this book as well as Treasure and Sahara to be the best books in the Dirk Pitt series. Cussler has recently branched out and started several other new adventure series with different heroes, but I think I will always be partial to Dirk Pitt.


He's my ideal hero. 6 feet 4 inches tall, deep green opaline eyes and short wavy black hair. While I think Matthew McConaghey did a very good job as Dirk in the movie Sahara, Matthew does not fit that description.

This is the original 1994 cover. The story is of a treasure hunt and looting of Peruvian artifacts, and an ancient story of how the pre-Inca peoples (called Chachapoyan) took their gold treasures into hiding. They story was that they sailed north from Peru. So the hunt is on between the Crime family called Zolar International, and Dirk Pitt's employer - NUMA (National Underwater Marine Agency) to find and recover this vast amount of treasure before it disappears into the private collections of the extremely wealthy private collectors.



Eventually the treasure is located at the head of the Sea of Cortez better known as the Gulf of California. During the search, Dirk and his friends have various encounters with the Zolar family. They are kidnapped, bombed, left for dead and even an attempted drowning. But along with the help of the local Indians, Dirk and friends overpower the Zolar crime family, and recover the treasure for Peru and along the way they discover a large underground river big enough to re-cultivate the desert above.

3 comments:

Lori L said...

I have read every Dirk Pitt novel Cussler has written. It was one of the job descriptions when my husband and I were married years ago. I've enjoyed Cussler's recent novels more because Dirk isn't quite the same womanizer as found in the earlier works. While the plot is always enjoyable in all of Cussler's books, I used to snort and mumble "Yeah, right." a lot when Dirk was putting the moves on some young beauty.

Francesca Thomas said...

I do agree with you Lori. He's not the same womaniser because he has finally settled down with the Congresswoman. The only problem I had was when the twins showed up - Dirk junior look exactly like father, and Summer looking exactly like mother. How convenient. The joys of fiction writing I guess.

dlyn said...

i think I will check this guy out - haven't ever read any of his books. Very nice blog - I will be back!