"Douglas Preston takes readers on an adventure deep into the Honduran jungle in this riveting, danger-filled true story about the discovery of an ancient lost civilization"-- Since the days of Cortés, rumors have circulated about a lost city of immense wealth hidden somewhere in the Honduran interior, called the White City or the Lost City of the Monkey God. In 1940 journalist Theodore Morde returned from the rainforest with hundreds of artifacts and an electrifying story of having found the Lost City-- but then committed suicide without revealing its location. In 2012 Preston joined a team of scientists using classified technology that could map the terrain under the densest rainforest canopy. They found evidence of not just an undiscovered city but an enigmatic, lost civilization-- and returned carrying a horrifying, sometimes lethal-- and incurable-- disease. Provided by publisher.

The gates of hell -- Somewhere in the Americas -- The devil had killed him -- A land of cruel jungles -- One of the few remaining mysteries -- The heart of darkness -- The fish that swallowed the whale -- Lasers in the jungle -- Something nobody had done -- The most dangerous place on the planet -- Uncharted territory -- No coincidences -- Fer-de-lance -- Don't pick the flowers -- Human hands -- "I'm going down" -- A bewitchment place -- Quagmire -- Controversy -- The Cave of the Glowing Skulls -- The symbol of death -- They came to wither the flowers -- White leprosy -- The National Institutes of Health -- An isolated species -- La Ciudad del Jaguar -- We are orphans.