When Matt McCarty travels five thousand miles to Newfoundland, his only intention is to put the ghosts of his past to rest along with his estranged, recently deceased alcoholic father. Instead, he will be drawn into danger and the adventure of a lifetime, unknowingly continuing the taciturn mystery man’s unfinished, clandestine wartime mission from 1942. U-boats have already torpedoed shipping within sight of Bell Island’s shore, but now, seventy-five years later, something terrible left behind by the enemy threatens a cataclysm that could destroy the peaceful existence of everyone in Conception Bay. As father and son’s stories weave back and forth in time, the present will collide with the past as Matt discovers both beautiful and deadly secrets above and deep below in the long abandoned iron ore mines of Bell Island.
Legend says that the haunting lights over the rapids on the James River at night are the ghosts of long-dead soldiers still fighting the Civil War. Just past the water lies historic Belle Isle, the former Union soldier prisoner-of-war camp, now a city park filled with crumbling ruins and dark wooded trails. When brothers Sam and Derek explore the island and local monuments to Richmond's past on the 150th anniversary of the Civil War with their friend Caitlin, some ghosts may be more alive than they expected! Join the adventure as the kids face a confederate biker gang led by the notorious Mad Dog DeWitt, explore suspended bridges, hidden hideouts, and secret graveyard ceremonies and learning about Robert E. Lee, Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis and more. The Virginia Mysteries Book 3
Under Platform 13 at King's Cross Station there is a secret door that leads to a magical island . . . It appears only once every nine years. And when it opens, four mysterious figures step into the streets of London. A wizard, an ogre, a fey and a young hag have come to find the prince of their kingdom, stolen as a baby nine years before. But the prince has become a horrible rich boy called Raymond Trottle, who doesn't understand magic and is determined not to be rescued. Shortlisted for the Smarties Prize, The Secret of Platform 13 is an exciting magical adventure from Eva Ibbotson, the award-winning author of Journey to the River Sea. 'This kind of fun will never fail to delight' Philip Pullman
More than two centuries ago, compelling evidence of buried treasure was found on Nova Scotia's Oak Island. Since then, extensive engineering works have been discovered and mysterious objects unearthed in and around the island's "Money Pit." The ongoing search has been featured on a long-running popular television series, but to this day, the island guards its secrets. In this book, historian John Bell presents all the competing theories — about who buried treasure on the island and how the complex structures in the Money Pit that have kept treasure hunters at bay were created. Is the island the former settlement of pre-Columbian Vikings? The location of a lost pirate treasure or royal treasures from England? The hiding spot for rogue captains of Spanish treasure ships? John Bell presents each theory in turn. Bell also provides a detailed illustration of the mysterious work that was done on the island prior to the discovery of the Money Pit in 1795. The illustration shows each element of the Pit's design as it was first built — including elaborate flood tunnels, a cave-in shaft, and more. This book offers a fascinating opportunity to explore many centuries of world history from the perspective of one of the greatest mysteries of all time. The extensive visuals showcase what treasures could have been hidden, and illustrate the lives of the adventurers, renegades, pirates, politicians, and paranormal entities that might be responsible for this puzzle.
The monumental statues of Easter Island, both so magisterial and so forlorn, gazing out in their imposing rows over the island’s barren landscape, have been the source of great mystery ever since the island was first discovered by Europeans on Easter Sunday 1722. How could the ancient people who inhabited this tiny speck of land, the most remote in the vast expanse of the Pacific islands, have built such monumental works? No such astonishing numbers of massive statues are found anywhere else in the Pacific. How could the islanders possibly have moved so many multi-ton monoliths from the quarry inland, where they were carved, to their posts along the coastline? And most intriguing and vexing of all, if the island once boasted a culture developed and sophisticated enough to have produced such marvelous edifices, what happened to that culture? Why was the island the Europeans encountered a sparsely populated wasteland? The prevailing accounts of the island’s history tell a story of self-inflicted devastation: a glaring case of eco-suicide. The island was dominated by a powerful chiefdom that promulgated a cult of statue making, exercising a ruthless hold on the island’s people and rapaciously destroying the environment, cutting down a lush palm forest that once blanketed the island in order to construct contraptions for moving more and more statues, which grew larger and larger. As the population swelled in order to sustain the statue cult, growing well beyond the island’s agricultural capacity, a vicious cycle of warfare broke out between opposing groups, and the culture ultimately suffered a dramatic collapse. When Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo began carrying out archaeological studies on the island in 2001, they fully expected to find evidence supporting these accounts. Instead, revelation after revelation uncovered a very different truth. In this lively and fascinating account of Hunt and Lipo’s definitive solution to the mystery of what really happened on the island, they introduce the striking series of archaeological discoveries they made, and the path-breaking findings of others, which led them to compelling new answers to the most perplexing questions about the history of the island. Far from irresponsible environmental destroyers, they show, the Easter Islanders were remarkably inventive environmental stewards, devising ingenious methods to enhance the island’s agricultural capacity. They did not devastate the palm forest, and the culture did not descend into brutal violence. Perhaps most surprising of all, the making and moving of their enormous statutes did not require a bloated population or tax their precious resources; their statue building was actually integral to their ability to achieve a delicate balance of sustainability. The Easter Islanders, it turns out, offer us an impressive record of masterful environmental management rich with lessons for confronting the daunting environmental challenges of our own time. Shattering the conventional wisdom, Hunt and Lipo’s ironclad case for a radically different understanding of the story of this most mysterious place is scientific discovery at its very best.
It started on a summer afternoon in 1795 when a young man named Daniel McGinnis found what appeared to be an old site on an island off the Acadian coast, a coastline fabled for the skullduggery of pirates. The notorious Captain Kidd was rumored to have left part of his treasure somewhere along here, and as McGinnis and two friends started to dig, they found what turned out to be an elaborately engineered shaft constructed of oak logs, nonindigenous coconut mats, and landfill that came to be known as the Money Pit. Ever since that summer day in 1795, the possibility of what might be hidden in the depths of a small island off the south coast of Nova Scotia, Canada, has made it the site of the world's longest, most expensive, and most perplexing treasure hunt. Author D'Arcy O'Connor recounts the fascinating stories and amazing discoveries of past and current treasure seekers who have sought Oak Island's fabled treasure for over two hundred years. It has baffled scientists and madmen, scholars and idiots, millionaires and get-rich-quick schemers, psychics, engineers, charlatans, and even a former president of the United States. The island has consumed the fortunes-and in some cases, the lives-of those who have obsessively set out to unlock its secret. Despite all their efforts, the mystery remains unsolved, and not a single dime of treasure has ever been recovered. The present-day search is an archaeological dig exceeding anything ever done anywhere for similar purposes, and it may well result in the discovery of one of the world's richest and most historically significant treasures. But this is also the story of individuals who have dedicated years of their lives to discover what was buried long ago beneath this strange island. They are driven by a lust for gold, by archaeological curiosity, and by their determination to outwit the engineer who was responsible for the Oak Island enigma.
Wedding bells are ringing in the latest page-turning Library Lover's Mystery from the New York Times bestselling author of Word to the Wise. Love is in the air in Briar Creek as library director Lindsey Norris and boat captain Mike (Sully) Sullivan are finally tying the knot. The entire town is excited for the happy day, and Lindsey and Sully's plan for a small wedding evaporates as more and more people insist upon attending the event of the year. When Lindsey and her crafternoon pals head out to Bell Island to see if it can accommodate the ever-expanding guest list, they are horrified to discover a body washed up on the rocky shore. Even worse, Lindsey recognizes the man as the justice of the peace who was supposed to officiate her wedding ceremony. When it becomes clear he was murdered, Lindsey can't help but wonder if it had to do with the wedding. Now she has to book it to solve the mystery before it ends her happily ever after before it's even begun....
AARP Digital Editions offer you practical tips, proven solutions, and expert guidance. In The Secret of Shelter Island, nationally renowned financial analyst and bestselling author Alexander Green explores the complicated relationship we all have with money and reveals the road map to a rich life. Drawing on some of today's best minds and many of history's greatest thinkers, The Secret of Shelter Island is both a much-needed source of inspiration and an insightful look at the role of both money and values in the pursuit of the good life. Addresses what really matters when it comes to money and how to make smarter decisions with what you have Describes the profound connection between money, character, personal philosophy, and outlook Other bestselling titles by Green: The Gone Fishin' Portfolio If you want to understand what ultimately provides meaning, contentment, and the satisfaction of a life well-lived, then read The Secret of Shelter Island.
The tale begins over three-hundred years ago, when the Fair People—the goblins, fairies, dragons, and other fabled and fantastic creatures of a dozen lands—fled the Old World for the New, seeking haven from the ways of Man. With them came their precious jewels: diamonds, rubies, emeralds, pearls... But then the Fair People vanished, taking with them their twelve fabulous treasures. And they remained hidden until now... Across North America, these twelve treasures, over ten-thousand dollars in precious jewels, are buried. The key to finding each can be found within the twelve full color paintings and verses of The Secret. Yet The Secret is much more than that. At long last, you can learn not only the whereabouts of the Fair People's treasure, but also the modern forms and hiding places of their descendants: the Toll Trolls, Maitre D'eamons, Elf Alphas, Tupperwerewolves, Freudian Sylphs, Culture Vultures, West Ghosts and other delightful creatures in the world around us. The Secret is a field guide to them all. Many "armchair treasure hunt" books have been published over the years, most notably Masquerade (1979) by British artist Kit Williams. Masquerade promised a jewel-encrusted golden hare to the first person to unravel the riddle that Williams cleverly hid in his art. In 1982, while everyone in Britain was still madly digging up hedgerows and pastures in search of the golden hare, The Secret: A Treasure Hunt was published in America. The previous year, author and publisher Byron Preiss had traveled to 12 locations in the continental U.S. (and possibly Canada) to secretly bury a dozen ceramic casques. Each casque contained a small key that could be redeemed for one of 12 jewels Preiss kept in a safe deposit box in New York. The key to finding the casques was to match one of 12 paintings to one of 12 poetic verses, solve the resulting riddle, and start digging. Since 1982, only two of the 12 casques have been recovered. The first was located in Grant Park, Chicago, in 1984 by a group of students. The second was unearthed in 2004 in Cleveland by two members of the Quest4Treasure forum. Preiss was killed in an auto accident in the summer of 2005, but the hunt for his casques continues.
Ron Pumphrey came to public attention seemingly from out of nowhere. Now in his seventies, this mystery man, who until this volume had a veritably unknown past, is still larger than life. Human Beans is a memoir that covers the early childhood years of this wily Newfoundland icon, a renowned (and some might say infamous) journalist, politician, publisher, and radio talk-show host. For the first time, he presents with tongue in cheek the tale of his humble beginnings in the 1930s, a meritorious memoir of his growing up in Harbour Grace and on Bell Island. Fantastic and guileless, this autobiographical writing is a colourful exposition of a boy and his family.
