Invalided out of the army at barely twenty, Jackson Small returns to England traumatised by the violent death of his fellow soldier and blood-brother Connolly. Unable to settle and incapacitated by grief, Jackson sets off on a lunatic quest, back to the Peruvian jungle in search of something he cannot even be sure is real: the lost city of La Joya, the ancient capital of a vanished empire - a place of rare wonder once glimpsed by Connolly and never forgotten. The city is hidden in the cloud forest that hangs between the copper-green rivers of the Andes and the impenetrable jungle of Amazonia. The pilgrimage Jackson has to make to reach it will bring him into contact with worlds he has never before imagined: that of the American patriarch farming in the wilderness, a great-hearted native priest, and the love of his life. But the lethal green depths of the forest that hide La Joya turn out also to conceal other searchers, with motives far more sinister and complex than Jackson's. Gripping, vivid and hauntingly beautiful, The Lost City combines crystalline prose and psychological intensity in a narrative of perfect pitch and heart-stopping tension.

** 'Shukman skilfully blends his genres: political intrigue, drug lords and South American militia edge this novel towards a contemporary Boy's Own adventure in the style of Buchan or Rider Haggard, while the poetic prose harks back to Conrad's HEART OF DARKNESS ... A powerful debut' DAILY MAIL ** 'A gripping story of adventure, casual treachery and intrigue ... We want to pray for Jackson's safe passage as he pursues a penitent's journey across a forbidding landscape that is not only brilliantly evoked, but is also a moral and philosophical entity in itself' GUARDIAN ** 'Exquisite ... A big, hearty work that is both gripping and intensely moving. Shukman's breathtaking, lyrical prose propels a pacy plot which, at its most visceral, becomes cinematic in its scope. On the strength of the writing alone, this is a contender for book of the year ... The echoes of a Conradian geographical and psychological journey into the heart of darkness are obvious but Shukman is adept at blending genres and this is a also a tale of political intrigue, espionage and, ultimately, a love story' SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY ** 'The protagonist, Jackson Small, is the archetypal adventure hero: handsome and strapping, artistic, noble-natured and possessed of an uncanny knack for surviving unaided in the jungle' NEW STATESMAN ** 'Shukman proves himself a master of driven narrative and psychological drama ... At times the prose has the terse muscularity of a Hemingway adventure, at others an almost biblical thunder, underscored by touches of Graham Greene ... Jackson's trials in the jungle present one of fiction's most gripping descriptions of human distress. The physical landscape is omnipresent, the inner dreamscape haunting and dire. This is Shukman pushing his talent to the edge' SCOTSMAN ** 'With enough gunfights and explosions to spark a bidding war for film rights, this might seem like Boy's Own stuff. But Shukman is also a fine poet and travel writer, and the adventure is matched by the beauty of the descriptive writing' INDEPENDENT ** '[A] gripping tale of adventure and passion set against an evocative Latin American backdrop' WANDERLUST ** 'Breathtaking prose' TATLER ** 'Shukman has a poet's eye for detail' TLS ** 'His skill in rendering detail vibrantly alive is apparent; it's the closest you'll get to the sensation of a rainforest jungle adventure without buying a ticket to Chachapoyas' TIME OUT ** 'Paints the steamy jungle as a territory beyond the borders of human knowledge' METRO ** 'Haunting ... After reading this, though I have never been within a thousand miles of a rainforest, I feel certain that this is exactly what it must be like' INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY ** 'Reinforces Shukman's reputation as a writer known for superb evocations of place ... The characters are redolent of Graham Green's creations ... Jackson's journey towards the light, both physical and emotional, invests Shukman's story with dignified resonance' THE TIMES ** 'A gripping story of adventure, casual treachery and intrigue . . . brilliantly evoked' GUARDIAN ** 'Through it all there runs the pledge of genuine literature . . . contains a golden streak of imaginative art' Jan Morris, NEW YORK TIMES

Henry Shukman is British and lives in the US. He is the highly acclaimed author of two previous collections of stories and a collection of poetry.