Brian Wilson

Treasure of the General Grant Brian Wilson

On the 4th May 1866 the General Grant, a 179-foot clipper carrying gold, came to grief on the cliffs of the Subantarctic Auckland Islands of New Zealand. Robbie, a Southland (New Zealand) sheep farmer suspects that his uncle a famous treasure hunter salvaged this treasure but the secret dies on his uncle's deathbed. Robbie's obsession to resolve this mystery takes him down a dangerous path where he brushes with unsavoury characters who have more than a passing interest in the gold. Did his uncle salvage the gold and who really was his uncle?




This thriller involves historical events woven into a work of fiction. In the early history of New Zealand and Australia, ships took the dangerous but fastest route to England sailing west to east through the Southern Ocean. Many ships disappeared hitting icebergs, coming to grief around the horn or ending up as wrecks like the General Grant on sub-Antarctic islands. In 1986 and 1996 salvage expeditions to the Auckland Island meticulously searched the seabed where the General Grant had come to rest but no gold was found. What happened to this treasure?