Chasing the Sun by Natalia Sylvester
Pacazo by Roy Kesey
Red April by Santiago Roncagliolo
Death in the Andes by Mario Vargas Llosa
Andina: The Heart of Peruvian Food by Martin MoralesCosy crime set in SCARBOROUGH
Ten Great Books set in PERU
6th August 2026
Ten great books set in Peru.
Peru is a vibrant country in western South America, renowned for its breathtaking geographic and cultural diversity. Its landscape spans three distinct regions: the arid coastal plain along the Pacific Ocean, the towering peaks of the Andes Mountains, and the lush tropical rainforest of the Amazon basin.
As the historical heart of the mighty Inca Empire, Peru is globally famous for iconic archaeological treasures like Machu Picchu and the mysterious Nazca Lines. Today, it boasts a rich multicultural heritage, blending indigenous traditions with Spanish influences, and is celebrated worldwide for its exceptional culinary scene.
Her are ten great books set in this amazing country
Chasing the Sun by Natalia Sylvester
Andres suspects his wife has left him—again. Then he learns that the unthinkable has happened: she’s been kidnapped. Too much time and too many secrets have come between Andres and Marabela, but now that she’s gone, he’ll do anything to get her back. Or will he?
As Marabela slips farther away, Andres must decide whether they still have something worth fighting for, and exactly what he’ll give up to bring her home. And unfortunately, the decision isn’t entirely up to him, or up to the private mediator who moves into the family home to negotiate with the terrorists holding Marabela. Andres struggles to maintain the illusion of control while simultaneously scrambling to collect his wife’s ransom, tending to the needs of his two young children, and reconnecting with an old friend who may hold the key to his past and his wife’s future.
Set in Lima, Peru, in a time of civil and political unrest, this evocative page-turner is a perfect marriage of domestic drama and suspense.
Pacazo by Roy Kesey
John Segovia is many things – American, corpulent, shambolic, and obsessed with the history of South America. This history is what drew him to the city of Piura in the coastal desert of Peru, where every grain of sand teems with stories of Incas and conquistadors. Here, where past and present intermesh, he thought he’d finally found a life for himself. He met Pilar and he married her: they had a baby girl. But John is now a widower – and a killer remains at large.
A foreigner in a riotous, mythic city, John must somehow learn to be a father to his infant daughter, to cope with the visceral trauma of loss, and to suppress a voracious desire for impossible revenge. His story features an extraordinary cast of characters (a one-eyed nanny, a collective of monk-like vigilantes, the conquistadors themselves): it travels centuries within sentences, encompasses slapstick and heartbreak, and takes John from bordellos to bat-infested cinemas and ancient burial grounds in his attempts to ‘beat back death’.
Red April by Santiago Roncagliolo
Winner of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2011
Red April evokes Holy Week during a cruel, bloody, and terrifying time in Peru’s history, shocking for its corrosive mix of assassination, bribery, intrigue, torture, and enforced disappearance – a war between grim, ideologically driven terrorism and morally bankrupt government counterinsurgence.
Mother-haunted, wife-abandoned, literature-loving, quietly eccentric Felix Chacaltana Saldivar is a hapless, by-the-book, unambitious prosecutor living in Lima. Until now he has lived a life in which nothing exceptionally good or bad has ever happened to him. But, inexplicably, he has been put in charge of a bizarre and horrible murder investigation. As it unfolds by propulsive twists and turns – full of paradoxes and surprises – Saldivar is compelled to confront what happens to a man and society when death becomes the only certainty.
Remarkable for its self-assured and nimble clarity of style, Red April is at once riveting and profound.
Death in the Andes by Mario Vargas Llosa
In an isolated community in the Peruvian Andes, a series of mysterious disappearances has occurred. Army corporal Lituma and his deputy Tomás believe the Shining Path guerrillas are responsible, but the townspeople have their own ideas about the forces that claimed the bodies of the missing men. This riveting novel is filled with unforgettable characters, among them disenfranchised Indians, eccentric local folk, and a couple performing strange cannibalistic sacrifices. As the investigation progresses, Tomás entertains Lituma with the surreal tale of a precarious love affair.
Death in the Andes is both a fascinating detective novel and an insightful political allegory. Mario Vargas Llosa offers a panoramic view of Peruvian society, from the recent social upheaval to the cultural influences in its past.
The White Rock by Hugh Thomson
The lost cities of South America have always exercised a powerful hold on the popular imagination. The ruins of the Incas and other pre-Colombian civilisations are scattered over thousands of miles of still largely uncharted territory, particularly in the Eastern Andes, where the mountains fall away towards the Amazon. Twenty-five years ago, Hugh Thomson set off into the cloud-forest on foot to find a ruin that had been carelessly lost again after its initial discovery. Into his history of the Inca Empire he weaves the story of his adventures as he travelled to the most remote Inca cities. It is also the story of the great explorers in whose footsteps he followed, such as Hiram Bingham and Gene Savoy.
Lima Nights by Marie Arana
Carlos Bluhm leads the good life in upper-class Lima: he attends social functions with his elegant wife, goes out drinking with his three best friends, has the occasional, fleeting assignation. . . . Until he meets Maria Fernandez, a dancer at a tango bar in a rough part of town. The beautiful sixteen-year-old intoxicates him. An indigenous dark-skinned Peruvian, she represents everything his safe white world does not, and soon he can’t get her out of his mind. They begin a passionate affair, one that will destroy his marriage and shatter the only reality he’s ever known.
Flash forward twenty years: against all odds, Carlos and Maria have remained together. But when Maria finally presses for a formal commitment, feelings long suppressed erupt in a tense endgame that sends both of them hurtling toward a dangerous resolution that will forever alter their lives.
Eight Feet in the Andes by Dervla Murphy
Traveller Dervla Murphy and her nine-year-old daughter Rachel, accompanied by an endearing mule named Juana, clambered the length of Peru with only the most basic supplies to sustain them, spending most of their time above 10,000 feet.
Their gruelling journey was marked by discomfort and danger, though mother and daughter remained resilient throughout, sustained by their great affection for the beauty of the Andes and impoverished people who live there.
Eight Feet in the Andes takes the reader on a journey from Cajamarca, near the border with Ecuador, to Cuzco, the ancient Inca capital, over 1300 miles to the south. Confronting horrors and joys along the mountain paths, the Murphy women prove that they are as indomitable as ever.
Burial Ground by Michael McBride
When the body of Hunter Gearhardt washes up on the banks of a seasonal river outside of Pomacochas, Peru, with only samples of vegetation, a handful of feathers, two black- and gray-streaked rocks, and a golden headdress of indeterminate origin in his possession, his grieving father launches an expedition to find out how his son died.
The party uses these clues to divine Hunter’s route into the jungle, where they discover a surviving offshoot of a primitive tribe, long thought to be extinct, and something infinitely more sinister, something that’s been able to avoid discovery for eons for one simple reason…
No one leaves the rainforest alive.
Between Inca Walls by Evelyn Kohl LaTorre
At twenty-one, Evelyn is naïve about life and love. Raised in a small Montana town, she moves at age sixteen with her devout Catholic family to California. There, she is drawn to Latino culture when she works among the migrant workers. During the summer of her junior year in college, Evelyn travels to a small Mexican town to help set up a school and a library — an experience that whets her appetite for a life full of both purpose and adventure.
After graduation, Evelyn joins the Peace Corps and is sent to perform community development work in a small mountain town in the Andes of Perú. There, she and her roommate, Marie, search for meaningful projects and adjust to living with few amenities. Over the course of eighteen months, the two young women work in a hospital, start 4-H clubs, attend campesino meetings, and teach PE in a school with dirt floors. Evelyn is chosen queen of the local boys’ high school and — despite her resolve to resist such temptations — falls in love with a university student. As she comes of age, Evelyn learns about life and love the hard way when she must choose between following the religious rules of her youth and giving in to her sexual desires.
Andina: The Heart of Peruvian Food by Martin Morales
Andina is the cuisine of the Andes of Peru. Welcome to one of the most contemporary yet ancient cuisines in the world. Featuring over 110 delicious and unfussy recipes accompanied by fascinating stories, dazzling photography and beautiful paintings, Andina is the first ever book to capture the food and scenery of the Andes and the spirit of its people and traditions.
Andina also signifies a dish, an ingredient or a lady from the Andes. Martin Morales’s grandmother was an andina and here he pays homage to her and all the women chefs (picanteras) who have shaped this soulful and traditional cuisine, which is at the heart of Peruvian food.
For the last 15 years, Martin has travelled throughout the Peruvian Andes to collect simple, traditional recipes, magical stories and culinary inspiration. With dishes dating back thousands of years, alongside new creations by Martin Morales and his team of chefs who run the award-winning Andina restaurants, Andina’s recipes have big flavours, vibrant colour and are simple to cook at home. From light, raw dishes to hearty stews and soups; cheeky bites to exquisite roasts; and sweet, aromatic desserts to comforting hot drinks, Andina presents authentic, nutritious all-day and all-year-round food made with seasonal ingredients.
Please wait...
