Hollywood stuntman Reb Barnett has money, fame, a string of vanished girlfriends and a vast amount of self pity stemming from the death of his parents when he was a child. Fortunately the story begins at the point where Barnett begins the climb out of his past, thanks to a wonderful puzzle that sends him on a treasure hunt. The object of desire is a nearly mythical dagger made quite accidentally by Leonardo da Vinci, who then hid it, afraid of its power for evildoers. Leonardo reveals the location of the dagger in two handwritten documents.

Barnett’s father had tried to acquire one of the documents prior to his death, and when someone hands it over to Barnett twenty years later he feels fate has stepped in to make him the man to find the dagger. The second page is in the hands of an attractive art historian. Bedeviled by mysterious government agents, a billionaire maniac and the interests of an unfriendly country, the pair set off to solve the cryptic notes written four centuries earlier.

What is nice about The Medici Dagger is that Barnett’s stuntman profession makes the chase scenes in the book believable. His motivations are good. The secondary characters are well written. So what if you keep thinking that the book was written just like a movie? And none of the characters is a deep thinker? It entertains. It moves quickly. Steven Seagal may be too old for the movie, so substitute the Hollywood star of your choice and enjoy.

While reading this book I was made nostalgic for another treasure hunt story, The Gift Shop, by Charlotte Armstrong. In that story, a piggy bank sold at an airport gift shop is the object of an international hunt by a man who enlists the shop clerk’s assistance. The book is out of print but you may find it at a secondhand bookstore. It is worth the search.

--Diane Gotfryd