Chasing the Thrill

Starred review from March 29, 2021
Journalist Barbarisi (Dueling with Kings) chronicles in this captivating account the exploits of an eccentric community of treasure hunters who scoured the Rocky Mountains from 2010 to 2020 in search of New Mexico art dealer Forest Fenn’s hidden chest of gold and jewels. Following the nine clues in Fenn’s cryptic poem (“Begin it where warm waters halt....”), Barbarisi started searching for the treasure in 2017. Interweaving his own search efforts with profiles of fellow hunters, Barbarisi documents how the “Fenn blogosphere” helped turn the treasure hunt from a “lark” into a “community hazard.” One man spent $30,000 digging holes in a state park, and at least five people died searching for the treasure, including a Colorado pastor who was looking in an area Barbarisi had explored the week before. Barbarisi eventually dropped out of the hunt, but he interviews the searcher who discovered the treasure chest in a Wyoming forest in June 2020 and gets an up-close look at its contents. Shot through with dramatic plot twists, colorful personalities, and insights into the nature of obsession, this rollicking account will appeal to fans of The Orchid Thief and Born to Run.

April 1, 2021
The tale of an infamous and perilous modern-day hunt for buried treasure in the Rocky Mountains. In 2010, Forrest Fenn, a wealthy New Mexico art dealer, filled a small chest with gold nuggets, gems, and other pricey artifacts and planted it somewhere north of his home in Santa Fe. He then published a book and poem that, if properly interpreted, would lead to the treasure. Until it was finally discovered in 2020, the treasure sparked a devoted, contentious, and often paranoid subculture of Fenn hunters. Barbarisi, a former reporter for the Wall Street Journal, was good friends with one of them and soon got drawn into the search himself. In this lively book, the author provides a journalistic account of Fenn and the obsessives who attended an annual "Fennboree" and picked apart the poem on websites. What started as a fun hobby often sank into infighting over allegedly stolen "solves" and conspiracy-mongering; worse, the quest could be lethal: Multiple people died in the wilderness during futile searches. Because Barbarisi was an obsessive hunter for a time himself, the book is also an engaging adventure story. He chronicles how he and Beep, a friend, chased down leads and swallowed their frustration at coming up empty. The book is weakest when Barbarisi takes extended detours into stories of similar book-based treasure hunts and other lost treasures as well as during an account of his trip to Florida to meet other treasure hunters. Despite the meaningful context, the Fenn search is dramatic enough. However, the treasure's discovery by Jack Stuef shortly before Fenn's death in 2020 is a gift for a book like this, allowing the author to close the story with a tidy bow. In the process, he uncovers a lot of anxiety and greed, which even Fenn himself had to concede: "Knowing everything I know now, I wouldn't do it again." A well-reported insider's study on the engrossing and alarming fervor a search can inspire.

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May 15, 2021
Journalist Barbarisi spent several years researching and writing this mesmerizing account of a modern-day treasure hunt, which reveals a whole subculture of Indiana Jones types willing to travel across the country and invest life savings in the search for something special. In 2010, an eccentric millionaire and art dealer Forrest Fenn wrote a memoir titled The Thrill of the Chase, in which he provided a clue-filled poem to the location of a bronze chest filled with gold nuggets, rare coins, and valuable artifacts that was purportedly hidden "somewhere in the mountains north of Santa Fe." Barbarisi picked up the hunt in 2017, when he agreed to document a friend's attempt to make sense of the poem, soon becoming swept up in the chase himself. Was there actually a treasure chest, or was this a grand publicity hoax created by an octogenarian seeking a lasting legacy? Throughout the quest, conspiracy theories proliferate among the hunters, and there's plenty of controversy (blog wars, allegations of sexual misconduct, lawsuits). Barbarisi's narrative splendidly captures the timeless allure of buried treasure. Armchair adventurers will be riveted right up to the suspenseful conclusion.

COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.