Under the Andes

This is Rex Stout before Nero Wolfe, and you can feel the young writer flexing different muscles. Before he became the master of the detective procedural, Stout wrote globe-trotting adventure fiction with the same relentless energy he'd later bring to his mysteries. Under the Andes is pure pulp: two American brothers, their female companion, and a journey into the earth itself. The expedition goes wrong in the best possible way. Deep beneath the Peruvian mountains, they stumble upon a lost tribe of Incas, survivors of the conquest who have lived in darkness for centuries, unaware that an outside world exists. The tribe's king sees the fair-skinned stranger among them and wants her for his own. What follows is a breathless chain of escape attempts, calculated maneuvering, underground chases, and violent confrontations where the brothers must use everything at their disposal to free themselves and the woman they're trying to protect.