The Lost City

Jackson Smallbarely twenty and just discharged from the militarysets off in search of something he cannot even be sure is real: La Joya, the lost capital of an ancient, vanished Peruvian empire. Traveling through South America, Jackson makes his way through desert, arid mountains, inhospitable villages, and impenetrable jungle, meeting several unforgettable characters, including an American woman who both redefines and fulfills all of Jackson's expectations. And though he's warned at almost every turn, he still enters the lethal forest that hides La Joyawhere he will discover other searchers, with motives far more sinister than his own. With its lyrical voice, heart-stopping pace, and the audacious romanticism of the quest that fuels it,The Lost Cityis a novel at once suspenseful, unexpected, and thoroughly mesmerizing.

Henry Shukman has worked as a trombonist, a trawlerman and a travel writer. His fiction has won an Arts Council Award and has been a finalist for the O. Henry Award. His first poetry collection, In Dr. No's Garden, won the Aldeburgh First Collection Prize and was a Book of the Year in The Times (London) and The Guardian. He lives in New Mexico.