Riptide is the fourth novel by co-authors Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. It is loosely based on the history of the Oak Island Water Pit, involving the quest to recover an unknown treasure from the bottom of a mysterious pit.
Plot Summary
Centuries ago, the pirate captain Red Ned Ockham hid his ill-gotten gains in an ingenious treasure pit protected by a variety of deadly boobytraps. In the late seventeenth century, a local fisherman discovered the pit on Ragged Island and began the first of a series of ill-fated attempts to recover the treasure.
Now, backed by several million dollars of investment capital, a salvage company called Thalassa has convinced the current owner of Ragged Island to allow them to make a final monumental effort to recover the treasure. Armed with the encrypted journal of the engineer who designed the pit, they start to dig, but are soon plagued with mysterious accidents, equipment failures, and illnesses among the crew. Coincidence, or part of the fabled Ragged Island curse?
Riptide combines elements of an adventure novel, a medical thriller, and a historical mystery into a riveting story that will keep you turning the pages until you, too, discover what force guards the treasure at the bottom of the Money Pit.