A "man's beach read" - action packed with death and treasure around every corner and attractive women too. Reads like an Indiana Jones movie, and although not always believable, it's fun.

May have some spoilers!

A Dirk Pitt favorite!! This twelve installment of the Dirk Pitt series gives us every thing we've come to expect but more!

Dirk Pitt comes into the book pretty quick in this installment, unlike the others where we had to read quite a bit before he put in an appearance. In this one we get our back ground info of how in 1578 Sir Francis Drake captures the Spanish Galleon filled with Inca gold, and the key to a long-lost treasure. As the ships split to take the treasures home to England, the Spanish Galleon is lost and her or her crew never seen again. Then in 1998 a group of archeologist is diving in the "sacrificial pool" in the Andes of Peru, after two divers disappear inside, Dirk Pitt and Al come onto the scene. After this which isn't very far into the book, things really pick up when they are captured by treasure hunters, all except Dirk who was left to die.

That is only the tip of the iceberg for this action packed and suspenseful ride that Clive Cussler has created for us! This has to be a favorite my favorite from the Dirk Pitt Series so far. Cussler has really out done himself with this one.

Also in this one Dirk isn't saving the wold. "What?" I know!! I was surprised as well! Though he does help out people and discover things that will benefit the world, he doesn't have to save the world from blowing up. Not that I diss the world saving because Dirk makes one hell of a super hero.

Again we have another appearance from Cussler in the book, which as also I think is ironic and slightly funny.

I definitely recommend this book to anyone and everyone, especially for fans of the Dirk Pitt series!

Wow this book was long. The amount of real action seemed light for such a long book.

A good action novel. Interesting and fast paced it has all the markings of a romping adventure. A sad amount of sexism and a lot of heroic grins flashed around. Slightly smacking of Indiana Jones it only falls slightly short of being a high tier novel. A good amount of South American history makes the aquatic action all the more good.

I haven't read a Clive Cussler book in a long time and after finishing Darkly Dreaming Dexter I was in the mood for an adventure.
I have several of the Dirk Pitt novels on my shelf that I've bought and not got around to reading yet so I flicked through a few until I settled on one that I liked the look of.
Inca Gold opens in the 16th Century, where Francis Drake is busy pirating his way through the Spanish fleet. He comes across a jade box containing secrets of an Inca treasure and sends it with his second-in-command back to England. Only, the ship is caught in a tidal wave and the treasure is lost forever. Cue Dirk Pitt and NUMA.
There's one thing that can always be guaranteed with Cussler's novels, a swashbuckling adventure. The characters of Pitt and Giordino are like old friends to me now and I enjoy the relationship that they have. As I've read other novels featuring the characters I know how long they have been friends for, so I don't need to know it again but if Inca Gold is your first foray into this world then it's essential information.
The best parts of this book are the action and adventure elements. Pitt and Giordino travel through an underground river, fight the bad guys, explore underwater caves and save the girl. All of these are heart pounding and exciting. It's the stuff in between that lets it down. The dialogue between all of the characters reads like a dodgy movie script, as if it's meant to be heard by other people and not just a conversation.
There's also far too many characters, all with strange names that obviously paint them as bad guys. People are unnecessarily introduced, even so far as the last third of the book. As always, the author himself pops up, which I find a bit cheesy and clichéd. The situations the characters find themselves in are also a bit ridiculous and they always seem to survive, despite the odds against them.
I think I'll also add that Cussler is quite sexist. The females generally are to be saved and are there to make Pitt and Giordino feel good about themselves. They also spend a lot of time crying.
By the time I was halfway through this book, I was counting the pages to the end.
So overall, it was alright, but I've read better by Clive Cussler, so I'll probably delve into another one when I'm craving an adventure.

Action packed, very adventurous, fun plot. Surprised no movie yet. Would be a great movie too.

This is exactly what you'd expect from an adventure book written in the 1990's by a male author who cranks out lots of books. It's regressive. The female characters are there as arm candy and for perky boobs. The male characters know all and solve all. The big baddies are really big baddies.

The plot felt a bit off at the beginning, but the story was good. Overall, a very enjoyable read. My biggest issue was the weird metric.... If everything is in metric, then don't give us feet, etc. If you are going to give us feet, then skip the metric. It was weird and annoying.