Treasure Hunters

Allan Baillie (author)

Puffin Books, Penguin, Australia, 2003: 206pp

ISBN: 0143300075

Genres: adventure, realistic fiction

Issues: family, friendship, politics, social condition

CBCA Notable Book: Older Readers, 2003.

After his car accident, Matt walked away from his secure accounting job, his wife and his young son, and started chasing dreams - dreams of shipwrecks, lost treasure, and mysteries of the past, that is.

Pat has finally finished his scuba training and is on his way to join his father for three weeks in Indonesia. He's hoping that all the extra homework he's been doing - hours spent hunting through old records in the state library - will finally pay off. If the clues he's unearthed do allow Matt and his mate, Col, to find one of the richest ships ever lost to the sea, maybe his father will finally come back home. A taxi ride through an angry pro-independence rally does nothing to reassure the boy, however, especially when it becomes evident that his father is reluctant to talk about his discoveries. It seems that Pat has to win his father's trust - without really knowing what is expected of him. Just when matters seem to be improving, an officious and frightening military officer starts menacing the treasure hunters' boat, as well as the local islanders. Tensions run high and every encounter is dangerous. Can Pat and his father locate the famous wreck for which they are searching before civil war breaks out? Or will they become caught up in the conflict?

Allan Baillie is an outstanding writer of realistic fiction with a slightly dangerous edge, and Treasure Hunters is one of his most exciting novels. Baillie uses the restricted setting of the boat, the dark depths of the ocean, and the hostile political situation to accelerate development of and relationships between the three main characters. In other circumstances the speed with which characters come to new realisations and are awakened to their personal responsibilities would seem unnatural but in this particular context it is not only believable but to be expected. In a very clever manipulation of the third person narrative form, Baillie allows the reader access to Pat's internal commentary on external events, including his changing views of his father. In addition to this, a parallel narrative (in a different font) describes events as they may have occurred on the treasure ship before it was wrecked, some four hundred years previously. This secondary narrative is in fact from Pat's perspective, his imaginative interpretation of the dry historical facts shared with him by Col and Matt.

A dramatic, easy to read, action adventure with a political twist, this is an outstanding piece of writing. Sensitive readers should be warned that Baillie pulls no punches in his descriptions of the actions of Indonesian military personnel as they deal with pro-Independence islanders.

Warning: death of main character.