Review: The Hunt for Confederate Gold, by Andrew M. Dare

American Treasure Hunters #1

The Kids Are All Right!

American Treasure Hunters is a new series of youth mystery novels from Ark Press, and their first official release since announcing their arrival last January. If you’re tired of angsty YA books that are really just wish fulfillment for alcoholics experiencing delayed adolescence into their 30s, give this series a try: the protagonists are competent and ambitious while still young, starry-eyed, and maybe just a touch naïve. (And that’s a charming thing.) On top of that, you’ll get a healthy dose of history and adventure wrapped in one.

The Story

The eponymous trio of Treasure Hunters (more on them in a second) live in Outer Banks, North Carolina. It’s summer right before their senior year and they’re partying on the beach for the Fourth of July, engaging in the time-honored Southern tradition of shooting fireworks at each other to simulate battle. (God bless the South.) At the outcome of this year’s contest, they stumble across a wrecked Confederate steamer at low tide, and they find the first of a few clues that could lead them to missing treasure from the Civil War.

What follows next is a little familiar in terms of story development—the boys meet up, they discuss some things, they borrow tools from Local Supply Guy, they ask Town History Genius some questions, they get followed by Shady Man of Dubious Origin—so it’s really carried by 1) the premise of this particular mystery (Civil War treasure) and 2) the boys solving the case.

The Characters

There’s a trio at the center of this lineup, but the Treasure Hunters as such could technically include their girlfriends and a kid from school. I won’t give you a full rundown of the cast, mainly you need to know about Ben (smart, home-schooled), Porter (elite jock, starting quarterback, huge), and Latch (grease monkey, good with machines.) The boys have different backgrounds and different skillsets, but their interests overlap and they bring their unique knowledge bases to the table to solve these treasure hunts.

They’re somewhat idealized, and that makes them easy to like. They stay on top of their grades. They get along with their families. They’re not out boozing or slumming around recklessly and complaining about the older generations ruining the world. These guys are the result of intact homes with good moral upbringings, but the book isn’t preachy about it. It’s just there, and it’s refreshingly wholesome.

The World

Since this series pitches itself as an adventure through history, it’s very much our world, and I thought it was a gutsy move to tackle the Civil War right out of the gate—especially in a way that didn’t make up any dumb reasons to hate on the Confederacy. There are no pulled punches but no straw men either; the boys have to get the facts of history right in order to find the treasure and evade their shadowy pursuers.

This requires them to know the truth about men like Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee, along with the time in which they lived and the events that defined their lives. Having read an above-average amount of nonfiction about this myself, it was nice to see it handled fairly in fiction for a change.

Politics

None, just history.

Content Warning

Very clean. “Wholesome” is the word that kept coming back to mind. The boys definitely have love interests and they get twitterpated in a very PG way.

Who is it for?

No bones about it, this series is an attempt to recreate the magic of The Hardy Boys that started a hundred years back. Rather than try to buy up and reboot that IP (which would bring its own set of challenges), Ark Press made its own from scratch, with Andrew M. Dare welding the aura of yesteryear to the tech of today.

Grandparents will buy this for their grandkids, uncles will buy it for their nephews. The price leans toward the “premium” side which might make it less accessible to Joe High School and his minimum wage paycheck, but young male readers are indubitably the target audience, as well they should be.

Why buy it

It’s fun, it melds historical fact with fictional adventure in the vein of Indiana Jones (though with slightly lower stakes), and it’s unapologetic about what it wants to be. The historical details were well-researched.

In fact, the only error I caught had to do with the character of Porter, who is a Latter-day Saint/Mormon. As his eighteenth birthday is less than a year out, he’s planning to serve a mission for his church, and the book mistakenly notes that this will last a year and a half. (Missions last two years for men.)

I assume this’ll get fixed in future printings. It’s an extremely minor detail that made me chuckle a bit. The book is great and maybe it’s a little premature of me, but I went ahead and pulled the pre-order trigger on the rest of the series—there are five more coming out this year.

I want more books like this. Check it out.