Follow Here To Purchase The Adventures of Quinn Higgins Boy Detective-The Case of Blackbeard's Treasure

Author: Douglas Quinn

Publisher: AAS  White Heron Press

ISBN: 978-1-470-09336-5


The Adventures of Quinn Higgins: Boy Detective – The Case of Blackbeard’s Treasure is the fourth in the book series by Douglas Quinn catering to young children, age eight to twelve years old.  It is a quick read that is based in Ocracoke Village, North Carolina.

This one hundred and eleven page paperback book has a picture of a grinning young boy wearing a bright orange tee shirt and a sideways baseball cap, holding a magnifying glass with a treasure chest on the front cover with a short book description on the back.  There are acknowledgements and reviews, some written by a few young children at the beginning of the book along with the author’s up-coming and previously written books, including those in the “boy detective” series.  There are a few grammatical and typographical errors (pages 13, 43, 95, and 106) and some words are misspelled for emphasis (hmmph, yeaasss and geeze) which may confuse a young reader.

The story is of young boy Quinn Higgins who takes a trip to the Outer Islands of North Carolina with his divorced father to see his Aunt Kim and cousin, Summer.  With Summer being almost the same age, they are good pals and go on a quest to find Blackbeard’s lost treasure that has been folk lore for decades in the area.  They befriend Hardy O’Neal, who knew Summer’s deceased father who lost his life at sea.  They also are introduced to Pegleg Peterson, the scruffy old man who claims to be related to Blackbeard himself and insists he is the only heir to any treasure found. Being the detective that young Higgins is, Summer and he put clues together by find a marking on a post and digging thirty paces away, which is ironically on the aunt’s property.  After finding a buried map, they take their small boat to the nearby marshes and get stuck in the mud, only to find in the end the actual treasure, saving the aunt from losing her house.

The author Quinn does a good job moving the storyline along although some dialogue is trite and repetitive, even for the age group targeted. He does present material that a reader can learn from in regards to fishing, flounder and the North Carolina coast and its’ surrounding territory. Although the book is written for young pre-teens, young middle-school and higher elementary children may enjoy the process of looking for buried treasure or follow Quinn Higgins throughout his boy detective series.


Follow Here To Purchase The Adventures of Quinn Higgins Boy Detective-The Case of Blackbeard's Treasure