Two modern adventurers searched for a treasure possessed by the legendary “Crazy Guys of Borneo.” One discovered riches. The other vanished permanently into an limitless jungle. Got he shed civilization-or dropped his brain? Global headlines suspected murder. Lured by these mysteries, New York Times bestselling writer Carl Hoffman journeyed to get the truth, finding that there is nothing as it appears in the world’s last Eden, where in fact the lines between sinner, saint and myth converge.

In 1984, Swiss traveler Bruno Manser about THE FINAL Wild Males of Borneo: A True Story of Loss of life and Treasure joined an expedition to the Mulu caves on Borneo, the planet’s third largest island. There he slipped into the forest interior to make contact with the Penan, an indigenous tribe of peace-loving nomads living among the Dayak people, the fabled “Headhunters of Borneo.” Bruno lived for years with the Penan, gaining acceptance as an associate of the tribe. Nevertheless, when industrial logging started devouring the Penan’s homeland, Bruno led the tribe against these outside forces, making him position as an foe of the condition, but also worldwide popularity as an environmental hero. He escaped captivity under gunfire double, but the strain took a emotional toll. Then, in 2000, Bruno disappeared without a track. Had he become a madman, a hermit, or a martyr?

American Michael Palmieri is, in many ways, Bruno’s opposite. Evading the Vietnam Battle, the Californian wandered the globe, finally settling in Bali in the 1970s. Following that, he staged expeditions in to the Bornean jungle to acquire astonishing art and artifacts in the Dayaks. He’d become one of the world’s most successful tribal-art field collectors, supplying sacred functions to exclusive museums and wealthy private collectors. And yet suspicion shadowed this self-styled buccaneer who made his living extracting the treasure of the Dayak: Was he preserving or exploiting native culture?

As Carl Hoffman unravels the deepening riddle of Bruno’s disappearance and seeks answers towards the questions surrounding both males, it becomes clear saint and sinner aren’t so easily defined and Michael and Bruno are, in a sense, two parts of one whole: each spent his lifestyle in search of the sacred fire of indigenous people. THE FINAL Wild Guys of Borneo may be the product of Hoffman’s extensive travels to the spot, led by Penan through jungle pathways journeyed by Bruno and by Palmieri himself up rivers to remote control villages. Hoffman also draws on unique interviews with Manser’s family and co-workers, and rare access to his letters and journals. Here is a peerless adventure propelled by the entwined lives of two singular, enigmatic males whose stories reveal both grandeur and the precarious destiny of the wildest place on earth.