A great Dirk Pitt story concerning ancient Incan gold and ruthless treasure hunters, one of my favorites so far. The ending is excellent.

I first read Inca Gold back in 1995 when it first came out. I last read Inca Gold in 2008. This is probably my 3rd read through of this book. One of my all time favourite Books on Clive Cusslers Backlist!!

This book was read for the prompt of Amazon, Brazil or Peru, or an unknown civilization. This particular story is set partly in Peru, and also in both Mexico and USA. It also involves an Unknown Civilization. Now you are probably going to try and tell me that the INCA are not unknown. Their history is pretty well known to most westerners. I agree. However i am not referring to the Inca as the unknown civilization. There was another pre-Incan civilization that lived in the Andes of what is now Peru, before they were conquered and subsumed by the Inca. This civilization was called the CHACHAPOYA. Never heard of them, you scoff. Of course not. That's why they are the unknown civilization!! But they did exist. Look them up if you want proof. They are mentioned in Wikipedia.

In the meantime, you want to know what this adventure is about. This is the story of a treasure hunt. And of the search for those who prefer to loot Peruvian artifacts. This is also the ancient story of how the pre-Inca peoples (called Chachapoyan) took their gold treasures into hiding. The 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 illegal collections of the extremely wealthy private collectors.

Eventually the treasure is located at the top 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 Sonoran desert above.

Dirk Pitt is probably my all time favourite fictional character and most of his adventures are usually rated 5 stars. This one is no exception!!

Read in HS - pretty good airport/beach reads

This is an entertaining novel that is a combination of something like "The Perils of Pauline" and "Indiana Jones" and supposedly takes place in Western South America up into North Western Mexico. There is a fanciful decryption of a couple of ancient pictographs and even a multiple threaded string device used in supposedly recording information.

Adventure with lots of twists and turns and situations that seem impossible. It's good to read about a hero, every once in a while, who cannot be stopped by anything, who struggles and thinks and survives long after ordinary people have given up. Sure, most of the characters have interchangeable lines and attitudes, but the story does grab and hold. I'll probably even read another Dirk Pitts book... maybe even one with an exclamation point in the title.

4 stars, if only for one of my favorite lines: "artifacts sitting in the rain [must] qualify as underwater stolen goods."

A predictable but fun adventure.

excellent book. I really liked how the story developed and the balance between treasure hunting and the preservation of History. Also the characters involved. Even Dirk Pitt was human (nearly died).

Oh, Dirk! Part James Bond, part Indiana Jones, all macho-male swagger, Mr. Pitt is a divisive figure and at times a challenging one for a feminist reader. Nevertheless, Inca Gold is a good time from beginning to end--one of those "turn off your brain and buckle up" thrill rides that leaves you cheering at the end.