Matthew Reilly · 1999 · survival

Matthew Reilly's 1999 thriller. A priceless Incan idol carved from a meteorite could power a terrifying new weapon, and linguistics professor William Race is dragged from New York into a headlong race to find it. His hunt leads into the mountains and rainforests of Peru, to a lost temple deep in the Amazon, pursued by soldiers, supremacists and the jungle's oldest predators.

1. 1
   New York

   Linguistics professor William Race is pulled from his New York university by the US Army to translate an old Latin manuscript - the only clue to the hiding place of a priceless Incan idol that could power a terrible new weapon.

2. 2
   Cusco

   The manuscript points to Peru, and the team flies into the high Andes near Cusco, gateway to the old Inca world, before plunging eastward off the mountains toward the trackless green immensity of the Amazon basin.

3. 3
   Amazon temple

   Deep in the rainforest lies the lost village of Vilcafor and its hidden temple, where the idol waits - and where Race, hunted by soldiers, a supremacist cult and the cat-creatures of the jungle, must seize it first.