Exciting Indiana Jones-like adventure with a cast of real-life archaeologists, temple looters, smugglers, and art collectors, centering on a fabulous, long-lost treasure. As is often the case in archaeology, the discovery is serendipitous: in February 1987, huaqueros (temple robbers) poking around the old pyramid complex of Huaca Rajada in Peru stumble upon a horde of remarkable gold artifacts including masks, knives, beads, and nose rings. A police raid leads to the involvement of Peruvian archaeologist Walter Alva, director of the Bruning Museum. Alva soon realizes that the thieves have found a legendary cache sought for centuries: the burial chambers of the Lords of Sipan, rulers of the pre-Incan Moche (c. A.D. 100-700), an agrarian people with a taste for human sacrifice. Massive excavation leads to further spectacular finds, including mummies, skeletons (some the victims of live burial), and priceless scepters, ceramics, and figurines. Shootouts between huaqueros and police threaten Alva's operations, but a greater danger is the voracious international black market in pre-Columbian art. Kirkpatrick neatly interweaves Alva's story with that of the smuggling network, the latter affording an exciting glimpse of a sordid demimonde filled with flamboyant con men, unscrupulous museum directors, and art-hungry private collectors—most notably Nobel-winning physicist Murray Gell-Mann. A British smuggler squeals, US Customs strikes, the Santa Barbara Art Museum is caught with illegal treasures, Gell-Mann nobly returns his collection to Peru—and Kirkpatrick, without moralizing, makes a strong case for other collectors to do the same. Another story of true-life derring-do from Kirkpatrick (coauthor, Turning the Tide, 1991; A Cast of Killers, 1986), who once again blends offbeat characters, local color, and a lurking mystery into top-drawer nonfiction. (Eight pages of color photographs, 45 line drawings—not seen.)
Pub Date: Oct. 20, 1992
ISBN: 0-688-10396-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1992
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
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