Sunday, January 27, 2013

The Lost Journal by Chris Blewitt

Arthur Layton has been moved into a nursing home and the process of closing up his Philly home falls on his grandson Seth. First task is set up for a garage sale. He gets everything priced and out to the driveway and yard leaving furniture inside. He forgot about the attic and checks it out. Amidst the mess, dust, and cobwebs his crawling around turns up a loose board under which is a small box with a key in it.

Two things happen at the sale. He scopes out Madison, a neighbor/bank mgr and there is this big black SUV parked across the street. Seth shows the key to Arthur who thought he'd lost it. It's a key to a safety deposit box so off they go to the bank that just happens to be the one run by Madison. And that SUV is out in the lot.

The contents of the box start the proverbial wild goose chase of clues to a long lost journal of George Washington. Seth, Madison, and Arthur follow clues to Constitution Hall, Valley Forge, Baltimore, and Mount Vernon (all the while being tracked by that SUV) trying to find out the contents of a document that people high in the governments of the US and UK want kept secret; a secret so damaging that both governments would resort to kidnapping or worse.

Think of this as National Treasure light - a decent history lesson that seems a bit short on heart. They keep finding little clues taking them closer and closer to the proverbial seats of power, finding some answer only having to keep silent about what he learned. It actually went pretty quickly, just that there were a number of leaps of faith and reasoning in the hunt, almost too easy. Overall, it was decent, just didn't have much meat to it. Blewitt also wrote that mystery set at The Masters recently reviewed by West Coast Don.

East Coast Don

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