Cover artist Juliana Neufeld Series Treasure Hunters | Country United States | |
Author Genre Fantasy, young-adult novel Publisher Little, Brown and Company | ||
Treasure Hunters is a young adult children's literature adventure fiction book written by James Patterson with Chris Grabenstein and Mark Shulman. It is the first book in the Treasure Hunters series.
The book chronicles the life of the Kidd sibings, who find themselves in the biggest treasure hunt of their lives after their parents disappear. The story shows them working together to defeat pirates and lose the pursuit of treasure-hunting rivals while following clues to find out what really happened to their parents and if they are still alive.
Plot summary
The ship of the Kidd siblings: Tommy, Storm, Bick and Beck is caught in a storm. Their father Thomas Kidd goes missing during the storm. Their mother also went missing three months earlier in Cyprus. The Kidds hold a small funeral for their father who is presumed to be dead. They continue to treasure hunt, their family business. The Kidds start their treasure hunt in Cayman Islands which was their in total treasure hunt destination before the storm. The four of them go into the secret compartment in their ship called the Room, where they find a list of the top ten greatest treasures of the world.
A speedboat follows the Kidds. A person from the boat takes them to the Big Man, saying that he needs to deliver goods from Thomas Kidd. They meet Louie Louie, the Big Man, who had previously done lots of deals with their father. He says that he needs an item their father promised to give him in exchange for a bee amulet and repairing The Lost for the Kidds. Tommy hooks up with a girl named Daphne and takes her for a tour of the ship. Bick and Beck search and question her and find out she was stealing a mwana pwo African mask. Louie Louie takes the mwana pwo mask, the item he desired and gives the Kidds the bee amulet. They find a map in the bee amulet titled Cordoba's Lost Fleet, which was a vessel that carried gold and silver bars that went missing after a hurricane. The map is later revealed to be a fake kept by the treasure hunter Nathan Collier, who was the nemesis of their parents. He informs the Police about their whereabouts who are about to take them to the orphanage but Storm's knowledge of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, saves them.
Tommy reveals that their father had discovered two of Cordoba's lost fleet shortly after Bick and Beck's birth and was instructed to reveal the treasure only when the Kidds were in a financial crisis. They take most of the treasure from the fleet, leaving some behind. Using Louie Louie's contacts they are able to sell the treasure to his associate in Miami. Timothy, a person referred to as their uncle, arrives at their ship and announces that he is living with them. Soon afterwards, The Lost is followed by speed boats with pirates. They ask the Kidds for the key to the Room but they lie they don't have a key. The pirates then kidnap Beck as a backup. They use a lie detecting device on her but she manages to outsmart the pirates and steals a bottle of Pentothal from them. They give her back to Uncle Timothy.
The Kidds, who have grown suspicious of Uncle Timothy, use the Pentothal on him after he goes to sleep. He reveals that he is a CIA agent and their parents were also spy agents who worked under him. The Kidds trust him and allow him to go to do his duty. Soon afterwards, the pirates, who had used a long range hearing device to spy on their conversations, come back. They are however tricked into jumping off the ship. Nathan Collier arrives suddenly by tracking Tommy's satellite phone. He takes the key from the Kidds and checks the room but doesn't find anything. The Kidds then travel to Portia Macy Hudson, an antiques collector and trades the Bee amulet for a Grecian urn. Daphne arrives at the spot and reveals herself as Portia's daughter, who tried to take the mwana pwo mask directly to Louie to trade for the bee amulet. The Kidds track Dr Lewis who is actually Louie's brother. He says that the Grecian urn is the one mentioned by the English poet John Keats in the poem,"Ode on a Grecian Urn". He then reveals the story behind their mothers kidnapping.
Mr Aramis, commonly known as the pirate king, sends their mother to verify whether the Grecian urn with the pirates was an original. It was a fake and the pirates, furious for their deal being broken, kidnaps their mother for saying the truth. The Kidds try to take the Urn to the pirates to free their mother but it is stolen from the Kidds by a group of girls working for Nathan Collier. The Kidds, having no choice, go to Aramis as they have the proverance papers for proving the urn as an original. The Kidds, once close to the urn, take it and run. Suddenly, CIA agents under Uncle Timothy's leadership arrive and arrests Aramis. However he only can save their mother from being killed by the pirates by making a deal with them. He makes the call to not kill their mother and is set free but his possessions are taken. Later on, the Kidds receive an email from their father and enjoy. Later on, the narrator, Bick, reveals it was him who sent the e-mail to make the family happy by making them think their father is alive and tells the readers not to tell anyone.