A Mauzzy & Me Mystery, Book 2
Cozy Mystery, Young Adult Mystery, Mystery
Date Published: 08-15-2022
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
After encountering a brief power outage at work, college student Sara
Donovan might be allowing her imagination to run wild. The main vault in the
Carlton Museum holds the Fire and Ice Exhibit, a collection of rare gems,
including the Star of Midnight, a 175-carat diamond. Although all the stones
are accounted for, Sara suspects the Star of Midnight was stolen and
replaced with a fake.
While conducting her own investigation, what Sara uncovers is beyond even
her wildest imagination: a coded message, papers with strange characters,
and a mysterious set of numbers carved into an office wall. Despite
dismissive historians and other experts, she is certain these clues point to
a mysterious centuries-old legend.
Unfortunately, her colorful history of usually being right, but always
being wrong, means she must solve the mystery to prove her theory.
Creating The Legend of the Nuestra Señora de Cadiz
Everybody loves a good treasure story. As a child, who hasn’t dreamed of finding hidden treasure chests brimming with gold and silver coins, rare gems, and jewel-encrusted baubles? The timeless success of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island says it all, let alone the box office smash hits of the National Treasure and Indiana Jones movie franchises.
So, as I was building out the plot for my latest book, Fire & Ice, I wanted to include a legend of a lost treasure. But the tricky part was the treasure needed to be within one day’s drive from Washington, D.C., where the story takes place. The legend had to date back at least 400 and preferably 500 years to give it a more mysterious luster. And the rumored treasure also needed to be substantial, not just a measly few hundred million dollars. Although, personally, I would take a few hundred million, but that doesn’t work for my book.
As I have discussed during TV and podcast interviews, I researched the heck out of everything for Fire & Ice. And that included lost treasure stories because I really wanted to pull a real one into the story. I read some amazing stories, including those listed below, but none met all my requirements for the book.
⦁ A California couple found on their property eight cans holding 1,400 gold coins dated from 1847 to 1894, worth $10M.
⦁ The Beale Ciphers, which if cracked will supposedly lead to a $60M treasure of gold, silver, and jewels. For more info, just Google “Beale Ciphers” and all kinds of articles will pop up. Although the treasure is said to be hidden in Virginia, I decided against using this for my story because the treasure is too small and I think it is a hoax. Check it out and decide for yourself.
⦁ Ghost Galleons: Both Real and Imagined, by Dr. E. Lee Spence. This is a fascinating article that really got my creative juices flowing.
⦁ The El Salvador, a Spanish treasure galleon that wrecked in 1750 along North Carolina’s Outer Banks, carrying gold and silver coins that today could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
⦁ The 2015 discovery of the San Jose, a Spanish treasure galleon that sank in 1708 off the coast of Colombia with a treasure valued today at over $17B. The wreck has not been salvaged because of a big legal dispute over ownership between Spain and Colombia.
Prior to its discovery in 2015, the San Jose treasure was the kind of true story I was looking for, but obviously it was too far from D.C. for me to use and it was no longer a mystery. But what it told me was that I was not crazy thinking a multi-billion-dollar treasure story was possible. So, I decided to come up with my own missing treasure legend that met my specifications. What I created was The Legend of the Nuestra Señora de Cadiz.
To read all about this mysterious legend, I wrote it up in an April 1st blog post. You can head to my blog for the full piece. Over the course of the next few weeks, I will be posting more about all the research that took place as I developed Fire & Ice, book 2 in the Mauzzy and Me Mystery series.
About the Author
B.T. Polcari is a graduate of Rutgers College of Rutgers University, an
award-winning mystery author, and a proud father of two wonderful children.
He’s a champion of rescue pups (Mauzzy is a rescue), craves watching
football and basketball, and, of course, loves reading mysteries. Among his
favorite authors are D.P. Lyle, Robert B. Parker, and Michael Connelly. He
is also an unapologetic fantasy football addict. He lives with his wife in
scenic Chattanooga, Tennessee.
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