Customer Reviews

Valverde's Gold: In Search of the Last Great Inca Treasure

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book is pretty disappointing. Whilst treasure hunts are inherently interesting (and this one is the biggest of them all), following Honigsbaum is more often than not utterly boring. In each chapter his quest for the lost Incan treasure diverges into a new dead-end avenue, and his research is so hodge-podge that it is difficult to follow.

Much of his prose is boring and ought to have been cut short. For instance, he spends a chapter detailing his study of old Spanish documents in Seville, despite the fact that he finds absolutely nothing of import. Historical research is not exactly something one needs to read about in detail. His prose reads something like, "And suddenly, I put a new search term in the computer! I waited, as the hourglass turned on screen for what seemed an eternity. Then, just as I thought I was about to find the key document, my search came back! 'No Documents Found,' it said." He might then look over an unrelated document, and spend a page talking about a story that has no bearing on the treasure or anything to do with it; it just seems to fill up space in the book.

Overall, the author seems out to intrigue his audience enough to buy the book, but that's the extent of his effort. It's like a bad movie in which the preview only shows scenes with pretty girls and cars blowing up. Suck the audience in, because once you've got their money, what do you care? As I labored to get through Valverde's Gold, all I could think was, "I know exactly how this ends... I mean, if he found the treasure, would he really have written this awful book?"

I must agree with another reviewer... all that is required of this book is the first and last chapters.
Instead of high-level adventure or life threatening exploits into the mysterious, the reader is best to settle for historical research of past attempts to locate Ecuador's legendary Inca treasure. No Indiana Jones script here.

With such an entanglement of characters past and present, along with weak geographical perceptibility due to a map which is certainly difficult to interpret, the discourse turns into muddle.

The subject at hand is simply overdone to the point of exhaustion.

First and foremost, this book is more of a literary and investigative adventure. It's not until the last chapter that the author actually details his own physical search for the fabled treasure in Ecuador of the Incan King Atahualpa. A treasure that by all accounts over the last 500 years may be the most valuable land cache of gold and other precious objects on earth. It provides interesting and entertaining background on the other treasure hunters and explorers who went before him on the search. This leads the reader through labrynthine twists of misinformation, questionable documents/maps and several "characters" the author encounters who come across as gold-crazed swashbucklers. The book is definitely well-researched, but I expected something more along the lines of an Indiana Jones type of real-life adventure and came away with something more along the lines of a day spent in a musty-smelling library....

Valverde's Gold is a first-hand experience of author Mark Honigsbaum's chase after a legend of lost Inca gold.

The story includes legend, some myth, lost and partial treasure maps, and jungle exploration. Sounds pretty cool, right? Sadly Hongisbaum's journey becomes a confused mess of indistinguishable characters, eventless snippets of his investigation, and ultimately a sadly un-impactful conclusion.

This might have been better if turned into fiction or perhaps a shorter story.

I'm a very big fan of conquest-era Inca and Spanish, but was disappointed by and uninterested in this book.

This is a book typical of a "hack" -- written by a journalist with no real feeling for his topic beyond finding a publisher for his efforts. Honigsbaum's "search" is hardly original -- this ground has already been well covered by Peter Lourie ("Sweat of the Sun, Tears of the Moon: A Chronicle of an Incan Treasure") in a self-deprecating and sympathetic account of his fascinating quest for the location of "Valverde's Gold" not written with a book deal in mind.

Few topics fascinate me more than the Inca Empire, so when I found out about this account of a hunt for Atahualpa's gold, I had to read it. Unfortunately, this is not the first time I have come upon a book about an engrossing subject with only the subject matter to hold my interest. Perhaps the fault is mine, as I don't often read nonfiction, but when I'm reading a book that promises a riveting story, I guess I'm looking for something, well...riveting. I believe that Honigsbaum did have a fascinating story to tell; he simply failed to tell it.

The man took an expedition across uncharted, inhospitable terrain and could have told anecdote after anecdote about his journey through the Llanganatis range in Ecuador in search of Atahualpa's gold. Instead, he went on for 300 pages blathering about searching through archives, reading journals, and looking at maps. I think that was all a vital part of the story, just not 300 pages worth. A better book would have contained 100 pages or less of the above and spent the next 228 on the expedition. Any life-threatening episodes or adventure were reduced to a couple of sentences rather than told in any sort of riveting way. Biographies of some of the people he interviewed would also make much better reading. While I appreciate the thoroughness of the author's research, I don't think reading about it should be as tedious as the research itself.

I also take issue with the book's title, as it is NOT Valverde's gold for which they searched, but Atahualpa's. It was his in life, and hidden on his behalf after his death, by the most cunning stonemasons the world has ever known. It will be a travesty if anyone ever finds it and unleashes the type of greed from which it was righteously hidden in the first place. I did find the accounts of the curse attached to the treasure and the number of lives lost in search of it to be interesting. Atahualpa's hidden gold is indeed an intriguing mystery, but this accounting of it was disappointingly dry.

this is perhaps the most disappointing book i have read in years. i have always loved treasuer hunts but this is just a terrible account of one. the author lays out the basics about the capture of the inca king and all that, but then it disloves into loose ends. he hunts down various people who have information and maps but he seems to alienate them so quickly that he fails to get any helpful data and most of them will speak to him again. further he goes on a trek with a drunk and comes back more than empty handed. a terrible book and a total waste of time and money. wait for the movie "how not to find a treasure for dummies". dgs

Valverde's Gold is a very readable book. Having lived in Ecuador as a Peace Corps volunteer I think Mark captures the feel of being in Ecuador as a visitor, which he is honest about. He came to research as much as to search for the lost Inca treasure. I would recommend this book and in fact plan to read "The Fever Trail". I only gave it a three because I wanted more time spent on the "feel" of being in Ecuador and journeying through the mountains and less on the past treasure hunters. It is what it is.

Nothing I've read in the last several years has got my imagination churning like this book. To me the dead-ends, the chaotic assortment of characters, and even the dull frustrations of this real-life treasure hunt make this an endlessly fascinating book.

I stumbled across, purchased, and read this book before reading anything about it here on Amazon, and after I was finished I was shocked to see that it had received such varied and poor reviews. It's not a fictional thriller. I can understand how some readers might be disappointed if they pick it up expecting an action-packed adventure with a climatic conclusion.

I really enjoy good fictional thrillers too, especially those that use historical facts as a foundation or a jumping off point, but I have returned to Valverde's Gold several times as an engaging alternative that in many ways is more satisfying than a novel. It quickly pulls you into a real, vivid world of remote Ecuadorian landscapes, history (spanning four centuries), eccentric individuals, lost documents and hidden treasure. I highly recommend this book.