SOURCE: de Falbe, John. “Haunted by the Incas.” Spectator 289, no. 9075 (13 July 2002): 39.

In the following positive review, de Falbe praises the “marvellous vividness” of To the Last City.

Colin Thubron's reputation as a travel writer is so high (and deservedly so) that his novels often get forgotten in discussions of his work. This is a shame because they are extremely good, and because the two bodies of work illuminate one another. To the Last City, Thubron's new novel, is a characteristically delicate, artful construction, which has at its core an interior journey that is signalled firmly in the opening sentences:

As they descended towards the ravine, the mountains rose to meet them. They were entering a solitude deeper than any they had imagined.

Set in the heart of the eastern Andes, a ‘very hard country’ according to the mestizo guide, the book describes five Europeans on a fortnight's trek...