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Centered on the backdrop of a traditional treasure hunt in southern Italy in 1962, Goulding’s work establishes the tone of a no-holds-barred, anything-could-happen thriller with the ominous and sinister opening-scene murder of prominent figure Benedetto Gasperini. True to the thriller genre, the train encounter in which Gasperini reaches his most undignified lavatory demise leads to a genuine desire for further probing and the need to understand the motivations of a man called Rino Scarpa.
Though the novel primarily features the journey of one Martin Bass, a science journalist determined to unearth the treasure of the sunken ship, Hatun, it doesn’t take long for the reader to realize the stakes are far greater as the plot becomes a bursting fusion of personal and political intrigue reeling in the Movimento Sociale Italiano, a Mussolini-inspired Fascist party, and the Italian Communist Party. Goulding uses well-flowing prose to simultaneously develop the plot and provide a panoramic snapshot of the Italian locales.
The author effectively captures the spirit of discovery with the search for Hatun’s treasure, yielding an enormous and unexpected find that others like Scarpa are determined to keep hidden at any cost. When characters start dropping like flies, the curiosity intensifies, often held at bay by the light-hearted bar ventures of archaeologist and professor Dr. Umberto D’Orazio. More than anything else, Goulding has done a commendable job of crafting characters that audiences can stand behind while incorporating a fluid storyline imbued by strong elements of historical fiction based on Operation Gladio and the concept of the stay-behind army post-Cold War.