The Treasure Hunters Club by Tom Ryan

THE TREASURE HUNTERS CLUB by Tom Ryan is set in Maple Bay, Nova Scotia which is a seaside town and the “treasure” they are hunting is called Obelisk Treasure, from a pirate chest left long ago belonging to Captain Barnabas Dagger. Told in part in the present day, the story also shifts a generation or two back in time to when the club “members” (Henry Bellwood; Archie Jinx, “Junior” French, “Red” Oakley and Elmer Feltzen) stumble upon the treasure and decides to hide it again until they come of age. That would have turned their lives around, but instead the discovery acts as a curse of sorts which results in multiple deaths and a club member facing a long prison sentence. The treasure is stolen and hidden yet again, and future descendants try for forty years to find the treasure without luck.  It takes yet another generation to solve the complicated riddle. There is a beautiful old house called Bellwood which was fun to imagine and I liked the treasure hunting aspect, but so many characters were involved and the connections became confusing: “As she tries to wrap her head around the countless relationships that have played out here over the years, and the interactions and conversations and arguments and love affairs that spiraled out from them, it almost makes her dizzy.” The story starts out slowly since there is a great deal of backstory to explain, but the characters gradually come into focus and at about eighty percent of the way there is a crazy twist in the story, too. THE TREASURE HUNTERS CLUB received a starred review from Library Journal who described it as having, “the cozy charm of Jessica Fletcher’s Cabot Cove, with almost as many murders.”