In Leng’s thriller, the search for long-hidden gold puts treasure hunters in unexpected peril.

Jack Sullivan makes money leading private tours in Pennsylvania. If he could, he would devote all his time to his obsession: searching for Major General Edward Braddock’s legendary buried gold. (During the 18th-century French and Indian War, the British officer ordered Captain Thomas Clarke to stash the army’s payroll.) In the present day, a construction crew in Maryland unearths a wooden barrel containing, among other things, Clarke’s journal. Thanks to Jack’s connection to Emma Wilson (she’s his ex-fiancee), the assistant director and curator at the Museum of American History, he gets first crack at the document. Clarke left at least one coded message that points Jack to a marker, one of several that may ultimately lead to Braddock’s treasure. Of course, Jack can’t do this alone, and his best friend Steve Johnson (who saved his life when the two were in the Navy) joins him on the mission. Surprisingly, Emma lends a hand as well, despite Jack’s obsessive hunt for the gold being the reason she broke off their engagement. They debate how much to tell others—even potential allies, like the descendant of a French officer tied to Clarke and the director of a local Maryland museum. Jack and his friends aren’t the only ones looking; they repeatedly spot a hooded individual and the same pickup truck in their vicinity. Things quickly escalate as a break-in, an act of vandalism, and an assault make abundantly clear the lengths to which their unknown rivals are willing to go.

Leng layers his first foray into fiction with generous amounts of American history. The plot intermittently bounces between different times, portraying events from the Battle of Fort Duquesne to Clarke and fellow soldiers braving such hazardous terrain as a raging river to hide the payroll and markers. While Braddock appears in some scenes, the true focus is on Clarke, who showcases cleverness and tenacity as both a leader and an officer following orders. The present-day cast hews to a steady routine of painstaking searches and lighthearted downtime. The latter allows for Steve to find romance as well as the possibility of Jack and Emma reigniting their old flame (“Although she believed they were friends now, some uncertainty was in her mind. They moved to the beat of the music, and she lost herself in the moment. He whispered, ‘You’re still the best dance partner I’ve had’”). Some of the humor falls flat (usually when someone trying to lighten the mood), but the quips and banter between the friends conveys a welcome kinship. Readers expecting the treasure hunters to crack increasingly baffling codes may be disappointed, as the bulk of the story consists of them moving from place to place looking for markers. Nevertheless, the tension weighs heavily in a search that involves scuba diving to underwater caverns and squeezing into cramped spaces. The final act further amplifies the danger and throws in a few surprises as the novel winds down.

A diverting tale of an exciting, harrowing quest for a centuries-old fortune.