Spartan Gold (Fargo Adventure Series #1)

by Clive Cussler, Grant Blackwood

Overview

In this adventure in the #1 New York Times bestselling series, husband-and-wife treasure hunters Sam and Remi Fargo must out-pace a self-made millionaire in pursuit of an incredible fortune...

Thousands of years ago, two superpowers of the ancient world went to war, and a treasure of immeasurable value was lost to the shadows of history.

In 1800, while crossing the Pennine Alps with his Grand Reserve Army, Napoleon Bonaparte stumbled across a startling discovery. Unable to transport it, he created an enigmatic map on the labels of twelve bottles of rare wine. When Napoleon died, the bottles"disappeared"mdash;and the treasure was lost again.

Until now. Treasure-hunting husband-and-wife team Sam and Remi Fargo are exploring the Great Pocomoke Swamp in Maryland when they are shocked to discover a World War II German U-boat. Inside, they find a bottle taken from Napoleon’s famous “Lost Cellar,” and fascinated, they set out to find the rest of the collection. But another connoisseur of sorts is hunting his own prize, and the Lost Cellar is his key to finding it. That man is Hadeon Bondaruk, a half-Russian, half-Persian millionaire, and the treasure will be his, no matter what.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780425236291
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	08/31/2010
Series:	Fargo Adventure Series , #1
Pages:	528
Sales rank:	96,483
Product dimensions:	4.30(w) x 7.40(h) x 1.20(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Clive Cussler is the author of more than fifty books in five bestselling series, including Dirk Pitt, NUMA Files, Oregon Files, Isaac Bell, and Fargo. His life nearly parallels that of his hero Dirk Pitt. Whether searching for lost aircraft or leading expeditions to find famous shipwrecks, he and his NUMA crew of volunteers have discovered more than seventy-five lost ships of historic significance, including the long-lost Confederate submarine Hunley, which was raised in 2000 with much press publicity. Like Pitt, Cussler collects classic automobiles. His collection features more than eighty examples of custom coachwork. Cussler lives in Arizona and Colorado.

Grant Blackwood is the author of the Briggs Tanner series, as well as the coauthor of #1 New York Times bestseller Dead or Alive, with Tom Clancy, and The Kill Switch, with James Rollins. A U.S. Navy veteran, he spent three years on active duty aboard the guided missile frigate USS Ford as an Operations Specialist and a Pilot Rescue Swimmer. He caught the fiction-writing bug at the age of eighteen while reading Clive Cussler’s The Mediterranean Caper. 

Hometown:

Phoenix, Arizona

Date of Birth:

July 15, 1931

Place of Birth:

Aurora, Illinois

Education:

Pasadena City College; Ph.D., Maritime College, State University of New York, 1997

Editorial Reviews

At the start of this engaging first in a new series from bestseller Cussler (Inca Gold) and Blackwood (An Echo of War), Sam Fargo and his wife, Remi, trade quips while wading waist deep in a Maryland swamp in search of hidden treasure. The couple stumble across a WWII Nazi minisub, which contains an intact bottle of wine, apparently part of a collection known as Napoleon's Lost Cellar. The bottle has a riddle hidden in its label, the solution to which leads the Fargos to other lost bottles and eventually points the way to two solid gold Persian columns discovered by Napoleon and hidden in the Pennine Alps in 1800. The book's villain, Hadeon Bondaruk, who covets the columns and will do anything to get them, sends his henchmen after the Fargos. The clever duo manage to stay one small step ahead of the hired killers until everyone arrives at the inevitable boffo ending. Solidly in the Cussler tradition, this adventure thriller is sure to please new fans and old. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly