The Lost City - Tapa dura

Henry Shukman’s debut fiction collection, Mortimer of the Maghreb, was acclaimed as “fearless, brilliantly realized, [and] richly rewarding” (Los Angeles Times Book Review). Now, in his first novel, he tells the story of a British expat searching for treasure and, more important, for connection, amid the seductions and dangers of a rootless life.

Jackson Small has just been discharged from the British military after witnessing the violent battlefield death of his closest friend, Connolly. It was Connolly who introduced him to the fascinations of ancient civilizations, enticing him with stories of La Joya, the capital of a vanished Peruvian empire. Coping with his grief, Jackson sets off in search of La Joya, hidden in the cloud forest hanging between the Andes and Amazonia.

It’s an arduous journey: through desert, arid mountains, inhospitable villages, and impenetrable jungle. And though he finds unexpected help—from a young boy as wily as he is innocent, from an irreverent village priest, and from a woman who both redefines and fulfills all of Jackson’s expectations—he’s also warned at every turn to abandon his search for a place that may not even exist. But he lets nothing stop him from entering the depths of the forest believed to protect the ruins of the lost city—where he will encounter other seekers whose methods are far more sinister than his own

With its starkly lyrical voice, its headlong pace, and the romanticism of the quest that fuels it, The Lost City is at once suspenseful, continually unexpected, and thoroughly mesmerizing.

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