Barry Deane Stewart

Franklin's Fate Barry Deane Stewart

Sir John Franklin was a famous British explorer of the 19th Century. His expedition to the Canadian High Arctic, involving two ships and 128 navy men, went missing in 1848. It took ten more years to discover their tragic fate, with many details still not known. The two ships, the Erebus and the Terror, disappeared under the Arctic ice. They were not discovered until 2014 and 2016 respectively. Against a background of political and public celebration of the ship's discovery, an antiquarian book fair and auction takes place, focusing on the many interesting and valuable journals that were published about the search for the lost Franklin expedition. Authorities have determined that hundreds of valuable rare books worth millions of dollars have been stolen from many famous libraries and institutions. They suspect that some of those stolen books might appear at the Franklin book fair. A game of cat and mouse unfolds as they try to determine who stole the books and how to recover them. The trail leads them to the world of organized criminals and large-scale money laundering.