BOOK REVIEW: HISTORY MYSTERIES – LASSETER’S GOLD by Mark Greenwood

BOOK REVIEW: HISTORY MYSTERIES – LASSETER’S GOLD by Mark Greenwood
Puffin Books, young readers, paperback, rrp$12.99
May 2017
Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar
8/10

The legend of Lasseter’s Gold is an Australian mystery of epic proportions. Harold Bell Lasseter made various claims in the 1920s/30s that he had, years previously, stumbled across a magnificent gold reef in the central Australian desert. Several expeditions were funded and set out to find the gold, each one befalling difficulties, usually related to Lasseter’s erratic, seemingly paranoid behaviour.

Was Lasseter a charlatan? Loopy as a knotted rope? Mad as a hatter? Perhaps all of the above… or perhaps a desperate man who simply couldn’t find – in those days before computerised equipment – what he had discovered years before in the vast and desolate interior of our country.

Mark Greenwood does a great job laying out the facts of the case for tweens and teens to delve into this enduring mystery, and this series exploring Aussie mysteries is such a wonderful way to get kids to engage with history.

Category: Book Reviews