| The Treasure Hunter of Santiago Contributor(s): Missler, Peter (Author) |
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ISBN: 1905946228 ISBN-13: 9781905946228 Publisher: Durrant Publishing OUR PRICE: $13.86 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: December 2010 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Biography & Autobiography | Adventurers & Explorers - History | Military - General - History | Europe - Spain & Portugal |
| Dewey: 946.06 |
| Physical Information: 0.54" H x 6" W x 9" (0.77 lbs) 236 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: In August of 1838, in the middle of a devastating civil war, a grotesque figure arrived with the mail coach at Santiago de Compostela, the ancient pilgrimage town in the North-West of Spain. He was a former Swiss mercenary, who thirty years previously had heard a rumour about a massive hoard of church plate buried by the soldiers of Marshal Ney. A fantasy? A daydream? Just one of the many hollow legends of hidden gold that abound in Spain? Perhaps so. But, astonishingly, the Swiss vagrant did not come on his own errand. He came sponsored by Spain's savvy Minister of Finance, Don Alejandro Mon, who for some shadowy reason of his own lent credence to the tale. Like an historical Sherlock Holmes, Peter Missler traces the true tale of Benedict Mol, the treasure hunter, through the mists of time and a smoke-screen of cover-stories. It is a fascinating saga which takes us into Portugal with the looting French invaders, into the wildest mountains of Northern Spain with the brilliant polyglot George Borrow, and - by the hand of Mol - into the darkest nooks and corners of a hospital for syphilitics. No treasure was ever found, either in the first attempt, which toppled the government, or in the second one, which ended with the murder of two innocent peasants. Therefore, quite possibly, Ney's treasure still lies waiting elsewhere in a Santiago park... |