Plunder of the Sun

Series Character

• Al Colby

Setting

• Peru

Radio Adaptation

• Plunder of the Sun (CBS, 1949) Episode 96 of Escape!

Film Adaptation

• Plunder of the Sun (Warner Bros., 1953)

Summary

The second Al Colby adventure begins in a park in Santiago, Chile, when Colby accepts a job from the mysterious invalid Señor Alfredo Berrien. Berrien has a Peruvian “antique” that he wants smuggled back into Peru. The job pays $1,000 and gives Colby an excuse to get to know Berrien’s nurse, Ana Luz. Colby’s assignment is to carry the object aboard the Talca, an American ship sailing from Valparaíso, and return it to Berrien when they reach Callao.

After Berrien, who has a serious heart condition, is found dead in his shipboard cabin, Colby discovers that the object he is carrying is a quipu, an Inca message-cord, wrapped in three sheets of parchment covered with writing in Quechua. After consulting a museum in Lima, Prescott’s The Conquest of Peru, and an unscrupulous collector and translator in Arequipa, Colby learns that what he really has is a manuscript describing the location of eighty-four pieces of lost Inca treasure.

In his quest for the gold, Colby tangles with a rough, ruthless American “sharp-shooter” named Jeff who first tries to steal the manuscript, then proposes a partnership, and finally double-crosses him and steals the loot. The action climaxes with a chase across Lake Titicaca as Jeff tries to make it to Bolivian waters in a small reed boat.

Dodge considered this novel one of his best works. He was disappointed with the Hollywood treatment of his story, which moved the action from Peru to Mexico and changed the Inca gold to Aztec treasure, besides being a “low-budget, very poor picture.” He opened negotiations for a South American version of it with a Peruvian producer. Unfortunately, nothing ever came of the negotiations.