A young mapmaker, Esteban de Sandoval, joins Captain Mendoza on his quest to find gold in the 1500s in the New World. With the gold hidden where no one will ever find it and Captain Mendoza dead, Esteban finds himself on trial for murder, which he denies, and for not giving the king his fifth of the gold, which he admits.
I guess I am just not a Scott O’Dell fan. This is the second book I have read by him and I didn’t care for either of them. The parts of The King’s Fifth that describe the courtroom and the trial are quite interesting, but everything else, which is most of the book, is rather boring. Even a description of a battle with an Indian tribe drags. I kind of wanted the conquistadors to die right then so the book would be over. I liked the premise and how the book went back and forth between what happened finding the gold and what happened in the courtroom. It was just the storytelling that I didn’t enjoy. If there is nothing else available, this book is good enough, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to read it.
3 (out of 5) Stars
Books Read in 2018: 78
Pages Read in 2018: 18,545
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