"Sumaq T'ika know what Q'enti did to me years earlier, and what I did to Q'enti in return, and she knew the hate between us would fester as long as we both lived."
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Eye of the Condor by Patrick Carmichael
Trafford Publishing
book review by Wendy Strain
Carmichael's tale of a fictitious female spy working for the Incan emperor Wayna Qhapaq offers more than just a story of personal growth and death-defying adventure. It is also a story that illustrates some of the achievements of the once great but today little understood Inca Empire. In its careful blending of fact and fiction, adventure and description, this book is everything historical fiction should be.
In this sequel to the author's earlier novel Inca Moon, Inca Moon the spy has almost completely subsumed Qori Qoyllur the woman. This personality shift is made clear not only through her own perceptions revealed to the reader, but also through the reactions of those around her. Sent on an adventure not of her choosing, forced to protect the life of the woman she hates most, and with all she holds most dear at risk, Qori must delve into the deepest parts of her being and the deepest depths of the untamed Peruvian and Ecuadorian forests in order to survive with her heart intact. As she does so, she introduces the reader to a number of different cultures and traditions whether they consider themselves a part of the Inca nation or attempt to hold themselves aloof from it.
Filled with natural description yet skillfully balanced with a well-told story, the pages seem to turn themselves as the reader is swept back in time and into another place where individual strengths and weaknesses play as large a role in the characters lives as they do in ours. Good historical fiction permits this kind of immersion in story while remaining true to the spirit of known facts about culture, events, place and time—something Carmichael has achieved seamlessly.
RECOMMENDED by the US Review