Synopsis
Set on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State, Baker's Gold is centered on the search for over a million dollars worth of gold stolen during a bank robbery in Seattle 40 years ago. Supposedly hidden deep in the Olympic Mountains along with several bodies, nothing has ever been found despite the efforts of the FBI and the police for over two decades.
It is also the story of greed and obsession and the unsettling consequences that come with the search for gold as well as the secrets that have kept its mystery alive.
Suspensefully written and driven with discoveries of skeletal remains, bullet casings, murder, and a wallet belonging to one of the bank robbers, Baker's Gold focuses on two central characters that quickly propel the story. The main character, a former collegiate football star that has retreated to a geodesic dome on 20 acres, has become a survivor in a world with which he has become disenchanted. When he encounters a provocative, free-spirited 18-year old woman hooked, not only on searching the backwoods for the secret of the missing gold, but for the meaning of love as well, his world and his beliefs are radically jarred.
A man, who has spent most of his life turning his back on practically everything, including himself, Baker suddenly finds himself confronted with unraveling a mystery in which he never intended to become involved. With his life, and the lives of his friends, hanging in the balance, he stumbles across clues buried in the rugged Olympic Mountains that not only bring him closer to the truth, but also uncovers clues about himself that will reshape his life and his future.
Claiming only to want to be left alone on his property instead of bumping heads with the world, Baker keeps being increasingly drawn into one scenario after another that put him deeper into the heart of the 40-year old mystery. From sneaking into a mental ward to obtain information about the robbery from a 70-year old patient to entrapping a prime suspect into giving a taped confession, Baker's search across the peninsula brings him to terms with the world around him instead of running from it.
But his search is more than just hunting for gold through a mountain range and piecing together a mystery. Baker's search is everyone's search, everyone's Holy Grail, whether it is the search for truth or love or money. And sometimes the gold that we're hunting isn't sitting at the end of the rainbow the way we thought; the bits and pieces we find along the way may just turn out to be exactly what we were looking for in the first place.
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About the Author
A two-time semifinalist in the Los Angeles Writer's Network Screenplay and Fiction Competition, R.J. Cohn is a graduate of Northeastern University in Boston. He has been the recipient of the prestigious New York Times Financial Writer's Association Award and has been a feature writer and news reporter for the Boston Globe, the Boston Record-American, the Quincy, Massachusetts Patriot-Ledger, the Rochester, New York Times-Union, and the Salem, Oregon Capitol-Journal. He has also worked as a cab driver, bartender, tree-planter, and a migrant farm laborer.
Reviews
Cohn's debut, a modern morality tale, falls flat in this modern morality tale. On the rainy Olympic Peninsula, 44-year-old Baker, a former football star whose racketeering parents were killed when he was in high school, is living like a hermit. When he sprains his ankle, a teenage girl called Flea, who has been combing the area for hidden treasure, drives him to the hospital. Flea's treasure is the cache of gold bars never recovered from the Great Seattle Bank Heist of 1958. The only survivor of the robbery is a former sheriff who's in the hospital's mental ward. Baker visits him and is given a paper heart with a drawing of mountains and a cabin. The former sheriff is killed and Flea insists someone is shooting at her, convincing Baker that someone else is desperate to find the fortune. Readers will quickly lose interest in the handful of shallow characters and Baker's continual moralizing on the evils of lucre.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Baker's Gold
Seller: Books From California, Simi Valley, CA, U.S.A.
Seller rating 4 out of 5 stars
paperback. Condition: Good. Seller Inventory # mon0003726733