cover image Richard Knight's Treasure!: 2the True Story of His Extraordinary Quest for Captain Kidd's Cache

Richard Knight's Treasure!: 2the True Story of His Extraordinary Quest for Captain Kidd's Cache

Glenys Roberts. Viking Books, $17.95 (197pp) ISBN 978-0-670-80761-1

Chance reading of Rupert Furneaux's The Money Pit Mystery inspired Knight, an unemployed English actor to research the exploits and charts of the 17th century pirate in the hope of locating some of his booty. Knight's adventures, narrated in the first person by British columnist Roberts, led him, with the support of two Australian backers, to equip a fishing boat and set out on the first of two trips across the pirate-infested Gulf of Thailand to the Vietnamese-held Grand Pirate Island, where he claims to have found several chests of treasuregold bars and coins, jewels and objets d'artwhich he buried at an undisclosed location in Thailand for safekeeping. A second voyage to the island in search of more treasure ended in his arrest and 14-month imprisonment by the North Vietnamese who released him for a ransom. Photos. (September 4)